The Magpie's Nest
by blc
Summary: One-shots. The magpie lines its nest with whatever's shiny or attracts its attention. "Prometheus, Mnemosyne, Chronos" a tag for the end of "The End in the Beginning." I didn't want to write it, but I had to.
1. Homemade Apple Pie

She was curled atop his chest, the strands of her auburn hair whiffling his nose when he woke. She was adorable when she slept, her face smooth, a small smile touching her mouth, and no sign of the solemnity her face often bore during the day while they worked their cases. She had a penchant for flannel pajamas, though he'd have guessed silk before they were together. He kissed her forehead lightly, and her eyes fluttered open, their cerulean depths still cloudy from sleep. "Morning," she murmured, her voice husky, as she craned her head up to kiss him good morning.

He loved that first kiss of the day. Hell, he loved everything about her. But that first kiss of the day, every day-- it was a wonderful reminder that he'd finally got what he wanted. She rolled over and stretched, then smiled at him. "You go take a shower, I'll start some coffee."

He smiled back at her. She made better coffee than he did, somehow his always ended up being both bitter and weak-- which was why he'd always stopped to buy coffee for them back when they were just partners. "Sounds good to me, Bones," he said, pausing to give her one more kiss before he made his way to the shower.

When he came out, she was sitting at the island, checking her email on her laptop, and working on a mug of coffee. He poured one for himself, then kissed the skin of her neck peeking out from under the flannel collar of her pajama top. She smiled, and turned, and kissed him back, her mouth tasting of coffee and her own sweet taste, like caramel and cinnamon.

"There's leftover pie for breakfast if you want it," she said, smiling at him. "And some ice cream."

"Pie and ice cream for breakfast? Bones, I'm a lucky, lucky, man."

She smirked. "You are."

He went to the fridge, cut himself an enormous slice, stuck it in the microwave to warm, and got out the ice cream. She laughed as he plopped two enormous scoops on top. "You're a pig," she said, lovingly.

He smiled, mumbling around the first mouthful. "Well, what am I supposed to do, not only are you brilliant and gorgeous, but you make the best apple pie I've ever eaten."

Her eyes twinkled over her coffee mug as she spoke again. "Nothing's too good for the man that I love."

Just then, the alarm back in the bedroom went off-- he'd forgotten to turn it off when they woke up before it. He smiled, told her he loved her too, and kissed her again, then headed back to turn it off. He swatted the snooze button, except the damned thing kept buzzing.

--

The damned alarm kept buzzing. He slapped it again, knocking it off the bedside table, and groaned as he leaned over the side to find it and shut it off.

Sighing, he rolled onto his back, rubbing his hands over his face.

"Goddamnit," he said to himself. "You've got it bad, Seeley boy, when you stop dreaming about getting it on with her, and start dreaming she's making you pie."

It was going to be a long day. He'd better get going. That coffee shop ran out of the Kona roast that she liked by eight in the morning.


	2. A Beautiful Friendship

That girl with the skull and the mile-high stack of books was sitting under the tree in the middle of the quad, _watching_, again. Angela had seen her before-- hard not to, she had this incredible stillness about her in a field of moving, yelling, loud and active college students. She didn't really know how to describe it-- but the girl was like a watchtower, or a lighthouse, or something. Observing, silent, still, towering over everything else around her. Angela prided herself on noticing her-- seemingly no one else did, but Angela was an artist, a real one, and she prided herself on noticing things.

The girl always had a skull, and some ginormous stack of books. She'd read furiously for a while, taking notes, then look up and watch what was going on around her before bending back to her notebooks and scribbling some more. She was out here pretty much every nice day, and would sit there for hours, sometimes until it was too dark to work any longer.

Angela loved the quad. Loved the movement, the things people would get up to. She loved watching the way the light and shadows shifted over the grass and under the trees as the sun moved across the sky, and always marvelled at the way the color of an object would change, just because of how bright the sun was. It was the same thing, and yet, it wasn't, depending on if it was cloudy or bright. But this girl was different. Angela never saw her anywhere but the quad, so clearly she was in a completely different program than Angela. She never saw her at the bars near campus or at any of the many socials and parties in the dorms, either. And in the three weeks since school had started, Angela had made sure to make the rounds. She was an observer, and life happened at bars and parties and socials, not just class and the quad.

Folding the cover back over her sketchbook, and shoving it into her bag, Angela decided. This girl was just too interesting not to approach. She had fair skin, and always sat in the shade. Every once in a while, a ray of sun would pick up red glints in her hair. And her posture was perfect-- straight, and slender, and graceful, the few times Angela saw her stand and walk away somewhere. She walked over, directly. Angela handled everything but her art directly. The paintings? Well, she let them just come, like she was a hose and the painting flowed through her onto the canvas. The girl looked up, focusing on her as Angela approached her, she saw that she had the most incredible eyes. Some blue that wasn't crystal, or cerulean, or sky, or any of the other names Angela knew in profusion from her own hundreds of paint tubes. They were clear, and piercing, and it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. Eyes are the windows to a person's soul? Not this girl. She was shuttered.

"Hey, I'm Angela. I noticed we've both been sitting here watching some of those doofuses with the frisbee, and thought I'd come over to say hi. I've seen you here before." she offered.

"Hello, I'm Temperance Brennan. Doofus? I don't think I know what that means." Her voice was low and melodious, and her expression curious as she looked up at Angela.

Angela was momentarily taken aback. Who didn't know what a doofus was? And who then went on to admit it? This girl was fascinating.

"So," she said, motioning to the skull, "what's that for?"

"I'm studying to be an anthropologist, a forensic one, and I'm studying all the bones of the skull right now. You can see some of the microfissures and the aging conditions of the bone differently in sunlight than the lab." She picked up the skull, holding it up in a small but dexterous-looking hand. Angela looked at the girl's hands-- long fingers, delicate wrists, long forearms, and thought she could be a painter, with fingers like that-- she'd have total control over the brush.

"Huh," replied Angela. "I'm taking Anatomy next semester, the dumbed-down one for liberal arts students and artists like me-- I've done anatomical studies in studios before, but I want to learn a little bit more. Mind if I sit?"

Temperance? that was a long name, Angela thought. Brennan was better, but Bren was best, nice and short. The girl looked up at her, curious and something else. Guarded? As if she wasn't sure Angela was serious? She cocked her head to the side.

"Feel free."

Once Angela sat and settled her things, the flap of her bag flopping open to reveal her sketchpad. Bren, as she'd already nicknamed her, looked at her more closely. "What medium do you work in?"

That was a blunt question. And precise. Most people said something vague like "Oh, art," or "What kind of art do you do?" even when they weren't interested. But Angela had the feeling that this girl wouldn't ask, unless she was interested.

"Mostly painting, a little clay sculpture, though that's mostly dabbling, and sketching. I mostly sketch for ideas," she said, opening the pad and handing it over. "I tend to be more abstract with the finished stuff, but I like to be as realistic as possible with the sketching."

The girl nodded, flipping through the pages with interest and that watching look in her eyes. "These are very good, very realistic. I imagine that the abstraction can only come into play once you've captured all the details-- you can only decide what's not important after that."

Angela sat straighter. No one else had ever gotten that, the divide in her work, not even her teachers. But this girl looked at her work for three minutes, sized Angela up, and spit out a short and concise truth that summed up something Angela had been trying to express for months without success-- not since her last sketching teacher gave her up as hopeless, when he wanted her to adopt a photorealist side to her painting and Angela wouldn't. "That's it, exactly."

Bren tipped her head to the side, as if gauging the response for genuineness, and then smiled slowly and slightly. The small expression fascinated Angela. It was almost as if she needed to think about how to smile before she did it.

"Look, Bren," said Angela, deciding. "I'm starving, and was going to go to the Union to get some coffee and something to eat. You want to come?"

The girl startled at the instantaneous nickname, and again looked at Angela, watching and thinking, before deciding. It was unsettling to be on the opposite end of that gaze, but at the same time, it was magnetic. She nodded, and began to gather her things. "I'm not really hungry, but I'll join you for a coffee."

Standing, they looked at each other, each observing the other in her own way. Each nodded, deciding. This would be interesting. Together, they turned and walked off the quad.

"So why are you interested in Anthropology? And what does Forensics have to do with it?"

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.


	3. She Made it a Habit to Think

She came back late from track practice, to find that her foster parents' natural children had eaten all the leftovers from supper, again. She complained, not too loudly, that she hadn't eaten since breakfast.

"That's what you get, Temperance, for being a jock and a nerd," shot Arthur, the fatter, more obnoxious one of her "brothers."

She went in to the pantry, to see what there was to eat. Not much. They were hand to mouth, mostly, and her "parents" made clear that the only reason they tolerated her was because of the extra money she brought in. They didn't hit her, unlike the last place, but there was no interest in her, either. She took down the box of crackers sitting on the shelf, and found enough cheese for two slices on top of the two crackers left in the box. She ate them, slowly and carefully. She might only be sixteen, but she knew that the longer you chewed something, the more likely your stomach would believe it was full. She then had two large glasses of warm water-- it, too, was more filling than cold.

She went up to her room, to start on her homework, angry and hurt again that her "parents" hadn't bothered to try to save her some dinner. At least she didn't have to share a room, since she only had "brothers." She ignored her stomach when it started growling, and the lump in her throat when it started closing, and focused again on her studies. They were studying human anatomy, the skeletal system. The names were beautiful, the latin coming easily off her tongue, unlike the halting efforts of her classmates. The way everything fit into each other, each thing in its place. Unlike her. She concentrated, naming each bone and connecting tendon or ligament aloud, and the recitation so caught her attention that she forgot she was hungry.

She was in that home for another six months, her dinner most often crackers and cheese, or the tail end of a stick of pepperoni, or whatever other scraps her "brothers" deemed not worthy of finishing off. She always got breakfast, since she woke up before the rest of them, but dinner remained unreliable. On her own, in her room, she studied more. There were books in the library that talked more about bones. Osteophytes, and osteoblasts. Marrow, and spongiform bone. The concepts were fascinating, and all thoughts of her stomach rumbling in hunger or her throat closing in loneliness receded as she delved again into the world of the skeleton. She quenched her hungers with brain food. It became a habit, and the sheer fact of studying came, over time, to be an automatic appetite suppressant.

It was only when she couldn't think that she was hungry or lonely. She made it a habit to think.


	4. Warm and Reassuring Brown Eyes

_**Spoilers for S 4: The Finger in the Nest**_

"_He reminds me of you."_

"_Me?"_

"_He's got warm and reassuring brown eyes, and he's capable of great violence."_

Booth was initially insulted when she compared him to a dog. A killer dog, at that. But Ripley the dog sat there, quietly, his head in Bones' lap while she patted him and she identified the killer for them. Ripley looked at her trustingly. And she trusted him, as she proved when she came to Booth's office, collar and dog tags in hand, excited to adopt Ripley and make sure someone didn't abuse him again. She didn't care that he'd killed someone, because she knew he wouldn't do it again unless someone made him—Bones never would. She'd made arrangements for doggie day care, a dog walker, for someone to watch him when she was out of town. All that trouble, for a dog who looked her in the eye and put his head in her lap. Even if he'd killed before. She still thought Ripley was a "_very nice dog_."

It practically killed him to tell her that they'd had to put the dog down—it wasn't just policy, it was the law-- any killer animal had to be destroyed. And the way she looked when he told her? She looked like he'd kicked her. He might as well have. He did manage to avoid saying the automatic excuse—that he'd just been following orders.

Which of course, she knew already. He'd been following orders. Always had. And yet, here he was, still working, and going after the bad guys—although to the people he'd killed, he was surely the bad guy. It was all relative, in the larger scope of things—but the men on his side made a distinction, between a sharp set of teeth and a man with a gun. They always did.

There wasn't any way to make it up to her, so he helped her bury poor Ripley. And yet again, she displayed that willingness to forgive almost anything, to understand things most people would never be willing to even think about.

"_Warm and reassuring brown eyes, and he's capable of great violence_." Booth wondered what would happen if he put his head in her lap.

In the end, the dog was braver than him. Booth just gave her a hug, instead of following her home.


	5. Seeing Things Through to the End

_**This was something that had been bugging me for a while. I do love the B/B moments at the end of each show, but I sometimes think the writers don't spend enough time paying that last bit of attention to the victims. This is my attempt to correct that lack. **_

I wasn't trying to snoop. I just found it by accident, because Dr. B. and I had a presentation to give at a conference this coming weekend, and the whole lab had been busy working on this truly horrible serial killer case we'd just closed. This sick pervert had been preying on little girls in area group homes, and both Dr. B. and the G-Man had been relentless, pushing everyone day and night to figure out who and where the bastard was. We'd just managed it in the middle of the night Thursday, and with a sigh of relief as the two of them charged out of the lab, Booth calling in backup, the rest of us packed up our things for the night and went home to get some well-earned sleep.

When I got in the next morning, early, knowing Dr. B. and I still needed to work on the presentation, and intending to mostly finish it for her so she could just edit it in the car on the way down, she was already on the platform, making her final set of notes on the remains, Booth standing guard as usual over her. I couldn't see their faces from where I'd come in, but their postures screamed exhausted, and they were still wearing their same clothes as last night when they'd literally run out of here. Suddenly, I was afraid we'd missed something and that Dr. B. was looking for more evidence—even though I'd sometimes seen the two of them up there at the end of the case, making sure their file notes and photos absolutely jived with the remains. Perfectionists, both of them, seeing everything through to the end. I thought I was a hard worker until I met Dr. B and then Booth.

I was glad I'd brought in coffee and bagels for the whole team, and set them down at my station next to the platform, clearing my throat as I did so. "Guys," I said, looking up to make sure I had their attention. "Bagels and coffee when you're ready."

Booth nodded solemnly, said thanks, and went back to watching over Dr. B.'s shoulder as she took up the final file and walked over to the sixth and last of the victims. Each of them under 8 years old. Part of me hoped it had been a long chase, and that Booth had gotten to beat the shit out of the guy. Or shoot him. I'd never been so bloodthirsty before I started working in this job, but then again, I'd never imagined that bugs and slime would so often be the key to finding human slime. My views on academic versus practical research had definitely changed. I almost punched a guy at a conference a year or so ago when he had the balls to suggest Dr. B.'s work wasn't "intellectually pure" because it was "tainted" by practical considerations.

Dr. B., of course, hadn't looked up as I spoke, nor as Booth did. She had that hyperfocused look on her face, the one that tells those of us who know her that it had better be damned important before we broke that focus. These days, it was usually easier to pull Booth aside and let him decide if it was necessary. After all, he spent more time here than at his office, as far as I could tell.

After about ten more minutes, Dr. B. nodded to herself, made a few more notes, and turned to Booth, who leaned over her shoulder to read what she'd written, then nodded, his hand lightly on her back as he bent over her. She sighed, and straightened, and flipped the folder shut, Booth turning with her and stacking up the other five files as Dr. B. pulled off her gloves. They disappeared into her office, and sat together on her couch, re-opening the files and starting to do all the signing required. As they'd come off the platform, both looked sad, so sad, and worn. To them, there was rarely any "celebration" in catching the killers. Just relief, at another one put away.

The body language between those two was incredible. The way Booth stood right behind and to the side of her, watching all comers as Dr. B. worked. The way there was often six inches or less between the two of them when he stood behind or to the side of her. The way they'd come to tip their heads, or make the same faces to the same pieces of information—it was almost comical how identical they could be. The way Dr. B. would put her hand on Booth's arm when his jaw would start to tic when he was considering punching someone before they had enough evidence for an arrest. The way the G-Man's hand seemed to be permanently attached to Dr. B's lower back. The way one or the other would fix the other's coffee, depending simply on who made it to the coffeemaker first. The way they'd fall in step together when they walked off someplace, their strides matching, fast, long, and purposeful. Sometimes I thought it was Booth trying to keep up with Dr. B.

And then there were those looks—we all felt like we were intruding if we happened to be there when they were looking at each other like that. The look was the same, even when they were in the middle of a tearing argument, or one of the other of them was torn up about the case, or when they were planning on double-teaming some perp and were clearly relishing their cleverness. It said, "_Yeah, I get it. I get you._" It was an intimate moment, and I always felt dirty if I walked in on one, interrupting them.

I was thinking all this as I saw the two of them sitting on Dr. B.'s couch, their shoulders touching as they passed folders back and forth. Booth heaved a sigh visible even from where I was standing, and leant his head on Dr. B.'s shoulder, and then she rested her head atop his. I looked away, again feeling dirty for intruding. They'd come out when they were ready.

Angela came in and seeing me, headed straight for my station, seemingly starting to call out something cheery as she made her way over. I raised my finger to my lips, and her head whipped over toward Dr. B.'s office, where the two of them were still leaning on each other. She closed her mouth immediately, and finished making her way over, whispering "what time did they get here?" to me.

"I think they came straight from wherever they went when they left. Neither of them has changed yet."

She shook her head, looked again into Dr. B.'s office, and sighed. "Thanks, Hodgie," she murmured then, as she poured herself some coffee (she still takes it black, even if we're not together any more, as least some things don't change) and split a bagel in half, spreading it with her usual mountain of cream cheese. "Maybe I'll take these upstairs to the toaster," she said, offering.

"Sure, thanks. I'll help you." She smiled tentatively at me on the way up, but then walked the opposite way on the catwalk over to her office once we'd done, so I went back down "my side" and got to work.

The two partners emerged from her office not long after, and I looked up and said, "Up in the lounge" as Booth looked over to see where the food I'd brought was.

"Thanks," he said, and said something low that I couldn't hear to Dr. B., who shook her head, but then didn't resist when Booth slung his arm over her shoulder and half-dragged her up to the lounge. I'd almost say he's a bit of a bully with her, sometimes, but she does get more sleep and eat more when he'd around. I shudder to think what might happen if he really died. It was bad enough those two weeks the last time.

I finished up the last few things I'd left undone last night just as the two of them were coming back downstairs, the two of them clearly arguing about whether Dr. B. was staying or leaving the lab. I was on Booth's side on this. She looked wiped out. At least I'd had six hours of sleep.

As they approached me, I said, "Hey, Dr. B., I was going to finish those slides today and you can look at them in the car on the way down tonight, okay?"

Booth gave me a '_good man_' look over her shoulder as she started to say "Oh, Jack, I can't let you do that, there's too much work."

I shook my head. "Not really. I've got a lot of the data already in report form, I just need to put it in the slides. I've got the xrays digitized too, so I can load them onto your computer and you can just work them in once I'm done. It's really not going to take that long."

It was a measure of how tired she was that she gave in after only one "Yeah, Bones, let Hodgins take a pass at it while you go home. Grab a shower, maybe a little bit of a nap. You can come back later and do a little more work before you guys hit the road."

She nodded, said "Thanks, Jack, I'll leave my laptop," and went back into her office. Booth let go of her back long enough to hang back and bump my shoulder with his fist in passing thanks. Funny how I'm a grown up and in most ways pretty damned secure, but those little signs of approval from the G-Man make me feel like a five year old getting praise from his Dad after their first good game of catch. The two of them spent a few more minutes in her office, discussing something serious, but not angry, in low voices, before they both headed out. They stopped off at Cam's office, I assume to tell her the remains were ready to be released, then headed off toward the doors, Booth again shooting me a look of approval over his shoulder when I turned around to give Dr. B. an encouraging wave.

I set some data to render before heading back to Dr. B.'s office, and let Cam know I'd be hiding out in her office most of the day. I figured it was better to do so, and preempt any interruptions. She knew this talk was prestigious, and the Board of Trustees always geeked out when one of our lab advancements got published, so if she knew where I was, she'd probably leave me alone and not make any nosy interruptions. Dr. B'd left her laptop open on the coffee table, screen saver running. She must have been working on something last minute with the G-Man before they left, case files in hand. Those two never stopped working.

I tossed my coat on the side of her couch and sat, then pulled up her laptop and slung my feet up on Dr. B.'s coffee table. She wasn't here to give me a glare, like the ones she gave Booth when he did the same thing. And anyway, I was going to be doing most of the grunt work, though it was only fair, since in the end, the two of them still did most of the work on "our" cases.

I fiddled the touch pad, and the screen saver cleared-- but not to what I'd expected. She'd left an email window open, subject line "_Funeral Arrangements_." I didn't mean to snoop, but I'd always sort of wondered what happened after the remains left here, though I knew that there usually was a funeral. I was suddenly embarrassed—we all had gone to the funerals at the outset, but at some point, I'd stopped going. I don't know why, now. It wasn't as if most things couldn't wait for two hours.

The email was from Dr. B. to her accountant, cc'ing Booth at his FBI address. In it, she instructed him to make "_another anonymous donation_" to something called the "Victim's Fund" at the Bureau, and to arrange with some woman who was apparently their liaison to have the remains delivered to a local, well-reputed funeral home for further arrangements. "_As per usual, Agent Booth will contact you to provide you with personal effects for each once they have been taken into the funeral home's care_." I sat there, blinking in shock, as the email went on to list the names and ages of each of the most recent victims, the case we'd just closed, so that the donation would be directed correctly.

They did this all the time? She paid for each of our indigent victims' funerals? How many of those had there been? Angie'd told me and the rest of the lab once about how generous Dr. B.'d been in paying for the funerals of that father and daughter from El Salvador, and now that I thought of it, Dr. B.'d seemed sort of embarrassed and angry with Angela. That actually might have been the last time I heard anything specific about the victims' funerals. Or maybe I just stopped paying attention. And what did that mean, Booth would provide personal effects? They didn't go shopping for them, too, did they? They were skeletons. What did personal effects mean?

I shook my head, and realized my face was flushed with shame, both for reading the email, and for my own neglect of what was just as important a part of solving the cases as finding out who the murderer was. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten that. I closed the email down and stood, not quite ready to set to work yet. I needed to find out a little bit more.

"Hey, Cam?" I asked, poking my head into her office.

She stuck her head up from her desk, and said "Yes, Dr. Hodgins?" So formal, that one.

"What happens to the remains when they leave here?"

"Well, we give them to the families, usually a funeral home comes and delivers the casket, and Dr. Brennan or I arrange the remains, and then the home takes them away for the funeral."

"What about the ones with no families?" I asked, jerking my head back in the direction of the platform.

"Ah," she said, looking sad. "Well, the Bureau has a victim's fund that pays for such things. They make arrangements for a funeral home to deliver the casket, and then the same thing happens—Dr. Brennan or I arrange the remains, and the home takes it from there. I think Booth takes care of alerting the victim's fund. The project manager, Shirley, is very kind. Very proprietary of the victims."

Shirley. That had been the name Dr. B. mentioned was the liaison in the email.

"Why do you ask?" she said, looking curious.

"I just realized it's been a while since I've been to one of the funerals."

She nodded, and continued. "Well, I wouldn't worry about it. The Bureau actually provides very nice caskets and uses a very nice home—nicer, often, than what the families manage."

I couldn't believe she actually thought the Bureau's regular arrangements wouldn't be the bare minimum dignified handling. I doubted it, personally. I drove by Potter's Field sometimes on the way to work, and it was always busy. But if she knew about Dr. B.'s involvement, she wasn't giving any hint, and I didn't think Cam was that much of an actress.

"Do you, ah, know when the funerals for these girls are?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. I expect I'll get a call from Shirley later today. She's very prompt. It's almost like she hears about it before Booth's even turned in the paperwork."

I was sure that she did.

"Thanks. Could you, ah, let me know when you find out when it is?"

"Sure," she said, somewhat detached already as she realized the conversation was basically over. It was always full steam ahead to the next thing with Cam. She wasn't as much of a completist as Dr. B. and Booth were-- she tended to delegate the concluding details of things. I realized all over again how the partners always saw things, personally, through to the end.

0 0 0 0 0

I finished the slides, Dr. B. did her edits while I drove us to the conference hotel in Baltimore, and the presentation the next morning went well, as usual. As usual, she was swamped by admirers, though I had my fair share of people with questions, too, after the presentation was over. Neither of us had planned on staying long—we each had one session we wanted to attend after lunch, and then we were planning on coming home, and skipping the BS cocktail party at the end.

I snagged us a table way over in the corner for lunch, and Dr. B. made her way over slowly, continuously getting stopped by people who wanted to talk to her. Mostly men, macking on her, if I was any judge, and believe me, I've done my fair share of macking in my time. My version of my alpha male hackles started rising, finally, when I saw the tenth person in a row stand up to block her progress, though she'd clearly been trying to cross the room for twenty minutes. She looked totally pooped, now that she'd finished focusing on getting the presentation done. Booth would have been proud of me, because I got up, interrupted the guy who was both ogling and sucking up to the doctor, and said, "Excuse me, Dr. Brennan's got another commitment shortly and needs a chance to actually eat her lunch."

She quirked an eyebrow at me as I steered her by her elbow over toward her table, but said only "Taking lessons from Booth in alpha male posturing?" before setting to her food. I got up to go get seconds, and decided to make her another plate with more of the pasta and fruit salad she'd gotten. Of course, more supercilious flunkies were hassling her as she sat and tried to eat at our table, so I tried on the glare Booth gave dudes trying to zoom on the doctor, and it worked. Cool. She just rolled her eyes at me. Cool, too, considering she could have just punched me.

0 0 0 0 0

I was supposed to meet her out in the lobby when it was time to leave, and she was there, her back to me as she sat on a low-slung sofa, her posture still displaying exhaustion. I could hear her talking into her phone as I approached.

"No, Ashley wanted to be a dancer. I think tap shoes or ballet slippers. She liked pink. Do they make pink tap shoes?" She listened for a moment, then said, "Maybe a stuffed zebra? And a stethoscope?"

My stomach bottomed out. The last victim wanted to be a veterinarian, and Ashley was the first victim. This was what she'd meant by "_personal effects_," and I had no doubt now who she was on the phone with. I felt bad listening in, so I came around to the front. She looked up, smiled absently, and said, "No, Hodgins is here, we're heading back now. I'll call you later." She listened to something else, rolled her eyes to herself, and said "Yes. Two servings of each. Jack seems to have joined in your conspiracy to turn me into a behemoth." She paused again, and got quiet. "Fine. I'll call you when I get in."

"How's the G-Man?" I asked, smiling as she stood and shouldered her bag.

"Bossy," she said, her mouth quirking. "Let's punch the street, Hodgins. I'm tired."

"Hit the road, Dr. B.," I murmured. I couldn't help it. She noticed, too, and punched me in the arm, not lightly.

"One Booth is enough. Knock it off."

"Yes, Dr. B."

0 0 0 0 0

On the way home, she got a call and looked at it, then said, "Excuse me."

"Hi, Cam." She listened a moment, and then said, "No, that's fine. I'll come in tomorrow and take care of it. Shirley said they'd deliver the caskets at what time? No, that's fine. I'll meet them." She listened some more, then said, "No, really, it's fine. Enjoy the party. Give my best to your parents."

She snapped the phone shut, and returned my look. "Funeral arrangements. Cam has an anniversary party for her parents to attend."

I nodded. "Why do you have to go to the lab?" I knew, of course, but I wondered what she'd tell me.

"Oh, the funeral home sends the caskets and Cam or I arrange the remains so they can go back to the home to be buried."

I dared ask the next question, my heart in my throat. "Who pays when it's like this, the ones with no families?"

She looked out the windshield, not meeting my eye, as she said evenly, "The Bureau has a fund, and they make the arrangements."

"That's good of them," I replied. She nodded absently, lost in thought about something.

"I… ah… have been kind of a slacker in attending these things," I offered, still ashamed at myself. She looked over at that, her piercing gaze on me, assessing. I don't usually get on the receiving end of that stare these days, she usually trusts me, but this was a Mama Bear protecting her cubs if I'd ever seen one.

"Well, it's Monday at nine," she said, evenly, not denying my self-assessment as a slacker. I'd sometimes wondered why she and Booth would sometimes seem apart from the team for a bit right after a case closed, and now I knew. They were still taking seeing things through for the victims after we'd moved on to the next thing. I guess we all assumed someone else would take care of it. Those two assumed nothing.

"Thanks," I said.

She nodded, still assessing me with that look, then said, "I'll send you the address when I have it." Then she looked out the windshield again, returning to whatever sad thoughts she was thinking. When I dropped her off, she absently thanked me. As soon as the passenger side door was closed, she pulled out her phone, pressing the "1" and starting to talk as she went up the walk. I cracked the window, though I shouldn't have, to hear what she was saying. "I'm home. Should I meet you at the toy store or the mall?"

0 0 0 0 0

I thought about coming in on Sunday, and offering to help, but decided that after having been a nonparticipant for so long, it would be intrusive for me to show up and expect her to let me help. Plus, I didn't know if Booth would be there. I'd sometimes come in on the weekend to find them working in an otherwise empty lab.

Instead, I left Cam a voice mail that I would be in late, and responded to Dr. B.'s Sunday afternoon text of the address with a "Thanks, see you there."

0 0 0 0 0

It was a very small funeral, at the nicest, most spacious, most wooded and landscaped cemetery in the area. It was in a newer section, one that had been built not long after I started working with Dr. B., and I thought Cleo Eller's funeral might have been here, if I remembered correctly. There were more caskets than attendees. Besides me, Dr. B., and the G-Man, there was someone who looked like a social worker, and some nice-looking older woman who I decided was "Shirley," by the way she greeted both Booth and Dr. B. warmly, and stood next to them as the funeral home director read some short words. Booth and Dr. B. turned their heads at the same time and both nodded solemnly when I showed up and stood off to the side. He had his hand on her back, like he always did, and they both stood utterly still as the officiant read the traditional "from dust we were made, to dust we return" words of closing.

The social worker type and the woman I'd decided Shirley spoke shortly with the partners and then left, the two of them standing in front of the caskets a moment longer before turning together to leave.

"Hey, thanks for coming," Booth said, and Dr. B. nodded, smiling slightly, but they made no effort to talk further, just walked back to his truck, both with the same tired set to their shoulders.

I stood there a bit longer, reflecting. I wasn't quite ready to go back to the lab. I decided to walk in for a bit, and idly started reading the names of the gravestones around where the six little girls were going to be buried. And then my stomach flopped again. I walked in a few rows, and then over, and then walked back.

They were all here. Every single victim who hadn't had family to bury them was laid to rest under tasteful gravestones, with some small good remembrance carved on the stone. A vocation, a hobby, a personality trait—even the ones who'd arguably deserved being murdered had some truthful, yet positive thing on their headstone. They'd buried each one of them in the most expensive, most quiet, most restful cemetery around—each lonely victim placed with all of the others, giving them some kind of family that they hadn't had when they'd died.

0 0 0 0 0

I hadn't meant to snoop, and I was ashamed when I did, but at least now it gave me something to do. Neither partner mentioned when I attended the next funeral. Nor did they say anything when there began to be substantial anonymous monthly donations to the Bureau's victim's fund. I'd done a little hunting around, and learned that the rest of the Bureau's lonely victims did in fact go to Potter's Field, so I tagged the money mostly for them, and any excess for "_Cases solved with the help of the Jeffersonian Institute_." They shouldn't have to do everything themselves. Over time, the three of us started standing together, the two of them including me in that final farewell. We never talked about it, and I never imposed again to ask Dr. B. about the arrangements. All that mattered was seeing it through to the end.


	6. Sharing His Fries

_**With thanks to BondJane for some inspiration as to the setting.**_

The rest of it was bad enough, but the hunger was the worst of it, even worse than the thirst. And then of course, the fact that everything hurt like he was on fire, especially his feet, so that he couldn't stand or walk even if the goddamned hole was big enough to do that, and the usual disgusting shame of having to lie in his own filth. It was hot and dark as an oven, except when it was hot and too bright with all the lights when they took him out and tried to make him talk again. He knew he wouldn't talk, and he was pretty sure they were going to decide soon that he wouldn't, and then he'd be over. He hoped it would be quick, and not drawn out like everything else had been. He doubted it. Maybe the hunger would get him first, though. It wasn't just that hollow feeling. It was like he had a dog gnawing at him from the inside-- so painful and yet so empty.

He knew even as it was happening that he was delusional, but he was glad of the reprieve from being both furious and more scared than he'd ever been in his life. Some people probably saw girlfriends, or parents, or kids if they had them. He saw and smelled and tasted his mom's apple pie, and the cheesesteaks he and his buddies would chow down after football games, and ice cream sundaes with girlfriends before they were old enough to get good fake IDs and go drinking instead. In between the Hail Marys and the more specific plea of "_Please, when I get out of here, I'll make up for all those people I've killed_, _somehow, I promise,_" he most often smelled and tasted and yearned after cheeseburgers and fries, with a chocolate milkshake. They hadn't been his favorites, before, but for some reason, it was the one thing now that he wanted to eat more than anything else.

Every once in a while, when he was lucid, and not dreaming of cheeseburgers, he wished he had someone to go back to, who he could tell, who would believe him. Not his parents or family, or high school friends, who couldn't possibly ever understand. They hadn't the first time, when he came back from the Balkans, and what happened then was a walk in the park, compared to now. There was no way he'd even be able to tell them what happened this time. But there was no real likelihood of his ever finding someone who'd been through enough of their own hell to be able to not think ill of him for his own-- it would have to be someone who'd been through a hell of a lot. He couldn't help praying for it, though-- "_Please, someday, give me someone who understands_." He wasn't up for long, detailed prayers-- he was too hungry and thirsty and hot and the goddamned effing pain to think for more than a few minutes.

He wasn't actually aware when his squad finally raided the place and found him and got him out of there-- he didn't wake up until he was on the hospital ship. He was glad of it, even as he was ashamed to be glad. They'd send him home, now, and he'd probably get an Honorable Discharge, and he would never have to look anyone in the eye who'd seen him like that. When he was with it enough after the first few days to actually talk to someone, rather than just wake up occasionally, drink some more water, and fall back asleep again, a USO officer came around to ask him if there was anything in particular that he wanted.

"A cheeseburger. Some fries. A chocolate milkshake." He didn't even have to think about it.

"Anything to read? We've got lots of books, some comics, some DVD and CD players if you want them."

"Maybe later. Right now, I just want a cheeseburger."

They got it for him ASAP, and he stifled a groan as he sat himself up, ignoring the nurse and his own broken ribs. It really was the best thing he'd tasted in his life. As long as he could find a cheeseburger, he decided, he'd never be hungry again. But as he sat alone amidst the medical bustle of other nurses and patients behind their own curtains, he wished he had someone to share his milkshake, his burger, and fries with. Someone who understood, and wanted to sit across the table and share his fries anyway.


	7. Hold OnLet Go

_**I know it's been done before, but I had my own thoughts on Brennan's reaction after Wannabe and through PITH.**_

* * * * *

He would have held on if they'd let her stay with him in the ambulance. She knew-- knew by the way he gripped her hand so tightly in return, the way he stared back at her as she held on to him and begged him to stay-- his grip remained firm even after he lost consciousness, even after his blood continued to seep around both their hands as she pressed down on his wound, willing the bleeding to stop.

But they pulled her away. It took six agents to manage it before they made her stop holding on, and even then, it took two EMTs on his end of things to unwrap his fingers from hers while she kicked, bit, and screamed at the six trying to tear her away.

By the time she got there, his grip had slipped, without her to help him hold on. That was what happened with Epps. She hadn't been able to help him hold on, and because she'd failed, his own grip slipped. Because they'd torn her away, wouldn't let her go with him to make him hold on, his grip had failed to hold.

It was her only spark in the darkness. Neither one of them had willingly let go. It took eight men and one woman to tear them apart. Now her hands only held blood, cold and coppery-- the only thing she could smell or feel any more.

When she first saw him again, it was like someone seized her heart and gripped it, forcing it to beat again. The bloody feel and smell evaporated the minute her fist hit his jaw. She punched him, though, rather than throwing herself into his arms. She didn't want him to hold her right now. By not reaching out to her, before then, as soon as he could, to make sure she knew-- he might as well have let go.


	8. Words Wouldn't Really Describe It

He never admitted he brought them, and she never asked if he did. There were lots of reasons to ask or admit, but both felt like words wouldn't really describe them, so they each kept silent.

The gifts on her desk would appear seemingly at random, but there was always a reason. A hard case. A close publisher's deadline. The drawing near of the holidays, any one, really—she dreaded them all, even now that she had her blood family back. Even her period, she had no idea how he knew, but he did, when a huge bar of chocolate and a grande mocha would appear—the only time she liked chocolate. They were small things, usually. A bunch of her favorite flowers, a silly comic cut out of the paper, books from competitors with mustaches and horns drawn on the authors' photos. Sometimes, they were necklaces and earrings, fairly close to her style, although sometimes daintier than she would have chosen. She still added them to the rotation. After hard cases, they'd be more expensive or meaningful. A suncatcher after a little girl kept in a basement. A kaleidoscope for a case in the grey dead winter. A seashell for the deep-sea diver. No one saw who left them for her, and she would only say "from a friend" when someone asked.

After the second gift left on her desk, she grew thoughtful. Others accused them of wordless communication, and it was true. But even in silence, there was a lot left unsaid. So she never admitted she'd brought them, and he never asked about the gifts that began to appear on his desk, or in his mailbox, or on his doorstep. Again, no one saw who'd left them for him.

Silly socks, garish ties, glaring belt buckles. An identical pair to his favorite gloves that he bemoaned losing at a scene. A fresh baked apple pie, still warm, on his desk on those days when he had otherwise unbearable department meetings. Every once in a while, there were tickets to sports games when his home teams were in town. He'd round up Hodgins to go with him—she still didn't have an interest in sports. One time, after Sully came back for a visit, there was a pair of socks, with all the D.C.-area monuments. She still wasn't leaving. Once, an autographed puck when his team won the championship. There was a time when his doorbell rang, while he was home caring for Parker with the flu, while Rebecca was out of town. On his doorstep—a still steaming pot of chicken soup, fresh baked bread, fresh squeezed orange juice, and warm chocolate chip cookies. When he was asked about the gifts left on his desk, he would only say "they came from a friend."

In the year that passed since his shooting, neither admitted nor asked. They'd been best friends, before, and had only grown closer. But contrary to popular opinion, they'd stayed "just friends," if that meant everyone else thought they were sleeping together. They weren't, though both knew they were more emotionally intimate with the other than with anyone else either had known before. Over time, each changed the mind of the other about things they'd once thought were important—though often, they didn't discuss it.

The week before the first anniversary of his shooting, she was quiet, and kept sending him glances, as if she was afraid he'd disappear, this time for good. She knew that he wouldn't, but she was afraid anyway, so she left it unsaid. He noticed. He thought he knew what she meant. But he couldn't think of how to best say in words that he wasn't planning on leaving her, ever, so he didn't. Words wouldn't really describe it.

Instead, a year to the day of his shooting, she came into her office to find another gift, unwrapped, as they always were. A small box, in velvet. She sat quickly down, staring at it. Her hands shook as she opened the lid, looked inside. It was the only traditional gift she'd ever been left. Lovely, heartfelt, and traditional. She sat in thought, decided, then gathered her things for her morning appointment.

She was already in the elevator, otherwise empty, when he stepped on at his floor. He didn't ask, he just looked. She didn't answer, she just held up her hand. Neither said anything when they kissed. When they got off at their floor, they smiled without words at each other, and went to their meeting.

* * *

When he saw the ring on the anthropologist's finger, and the matching smiles each of them wore, he was momentarily speechless.

"Care to explain that?" he finally managed, pointing at her left hand.

"Not really," she said, looking over at the giver of gifts.

He looked back at her, his own giver of gifts, then looked back at their therapist. "Words wouldn't really describe it."


	9. Exploitation of Weaknesses

"_I'm not going to spar with you."_

"_Come on, Bones. You're always telling me how tough you are. Are you afraid?"_

She'd been at me for days because I'd pushed her out of the way of this linebacker-sized guy we were trying to catch. She was furious, insisting I wouldn't have busted my thumb on his ironclad jaw if I'd just let her help. It was annoying, to say the least. So when she re-started the argument, I was blunt.

"Bones, yeah, you're tough, but that guy would have flattened you."

Her eyes glinted, and she gave me that snotty look she gets when she thinks she's right about something. I was suddenly pissed. She was going to get really hurt, once of these days, and that would kill me faster than taking the bullet myself. I mean, if she'd just let me protect her. She was so aggravating, as much as I loved her, the infuriating, oblivious woman. So I issued a challenge, one I would win.

"Fine. You think you can take a monster like that? Spar with me first. No holds barred. You get three out of five disables, full body contact, and I'll never tell you to stay in the car, ever again."

That's when she said it. "I'm not going to spar with you."

What the hell? "Come on, Bones. You're always telling me how tough you are. Are you afraid?"

She nodded, seriously. "I am. I'm afraid I'll hurt you if I spar with you, full out."

I couldn't help it. I laughed at her. Uproariously. Her eyes narrowed. Her nostrils flared. And then, she closed in, right on top of me.

"Fine, Booth," she spit out. "But know this. I don't spar to train. I fight to win. And I fight to win at all costs. Do you know what that means?"

I just kind of stared at her. I mean, honestly? I was a little surprised at how riled up she was.

"Don't forget, Booth," she continued. "I'm good at my job. That fight in Las Vegas? You wouldn't have won it without me."

Shit. Yeah. Because she told me exactly where to hit the guy. Of course, I'm a cocky asshole, so I opened my mouth. "Yeah, you exploited his weaknesses, but _I_ did all the hard work. And you're forgetting something, Bones. I don't _have_ any weaknesses."

Her expression changed from mad to something else in an instant. I wasn't sure what it was. If it was anyone else besides Bones, I'd say it was calculated seduction. But this was Bones—that only happened in dreams. She laughed at me then. Uproariously.

"You have weaknesses, Booth. Shall I explain them to you?"

"Go right ahead," I shot back. "Like you'd stop if I told you to."

She laughed at me, again, and this time it was low, throaty, and so goddamned sexy. Now, she was making me horny _and_ mad. She was still in my face, but now she stepped back, assessing me, walking around me like I was lying on a goddamned examination table. Shit. She's never looked at me like _that_ before. I felt kind of naked, and not in a good way.

Her eyes glinted, as she stepped right back into my space, then grabbed hold of my arms. "First weakness," she said. "I'd stomp on your insteps," she said, throatily, her foot lightly covering mine, first one, then the other. "Your stride's shorter in the mornings, when you're tired, or in rainy, cold weather, you know. All those bone callouses get stiff." Her breath was warm on my chin as were her hands on my arms as she breathed those words into my face.

She stepped away, then, to my right side, still assessing me, like I was a specimen-- it _was_ calculated seduction. It was working. Holy crap. "Then, while you're off balance, I'd kick your right knee out, right here," she said, then took a perfectly balanced side kick stance, and brought the side of her foot to stop just short of "where your right ACL was partially torn and surgically repaired." Oh, holy crap. I'd never told her about that, when I blew out my knee in Kosovo. I was getting the sinking feeling that she was going to expose every weakness, right here. And yet, I was speechless—she was so incredibly sexy, that look in her eye.

She lowered her leg, dropping back into a perfectly centered fighting stance. "Once that knocked you down," she said, then stepped behind me and placed her little hot hand right where "I'd hammer strike you here, where your L1 through L3 discs were injured, at the same time as your feet." Her voice was low as she said it, and sexy as hell, and sent a thrill up my spine as even as she freaked me out, once more revealing she knew about some other remnant of torture I'd never told her about. I thought I knew my partner, but here she was, schooling me. I was more hot for her and more scared of her than I'd ever been yet, all at once.

She just kept going. "Then," she almost growled, the heat of her palpable as she stepped in closer behind me, "there's some broken ribs, here, as old as your knee injury," and her hand splayed flat under my arm, her fingers gripping lightly, "that would yield to a basic punch quite easily." Yep. That rifle butt to the ribs was what made my opposite knee go out, when I landed all wrong.

She let go, stepping away, and coming to stand back in front of me, once again perfectly balanced in a fighting stance. "If you still weren't down, and I doubt it," she smiled evilly at me, "I'd wait for you to throw a punch, and then duck." She mimed doing so, then kept talking. "I'd come under and around, grabbing this arm," she said, taking my left wrist in her hand and pushing it and my arm back and up toward my neck, "because this rotator cuff is tighter and hurts more, compared to the other. High school basketball, right, Booth?" she asked, stepping closer as she pushed my arm just to the straining point into my back. Her hot breath whiffled my neck, her heat again seeping into me. I had the worst hard on in my life, and my pants were not going to hide it, at all. She let go of my arm, and stepped back around, looking me straight in the eye as she stepped back in my space, grabbing my arms again. She was so close, I would hardly have to bend down at all to kiss her. Or pick her up and toss her over my shoulder. Whatever.

"And then, Booth," she breathed, as she delivered the knockout, "because I fight to win, and I make my opponent stay down, I'd knee you in the testicles." She pulled me closer, and dragged her knee firmly up the inside of my thigh, stopping just short of my raging hard on. This was delivered with the evilest, sexiest smile of all, her sweet breath right in my face. She licked her lips, winked, and stepped back, letting go.

She looked me up and down once more, then said, "Or I could just go home, put on that red sweater you ogle my breasts in so much, and make Mac and Cheese and chocolate pudding for dinner. Feel free to stop by."

She turned, looked back over her shoulder, winked at me again, and sashayed that incredible ass of hers right out of the lab.

"Sweet mother of mercy," I whispered when I got my voice back.

"Holy crap, dude," Hodgins said.

Angela's voice followed. "That was hot."

Cam just snickered at me. Sweets' jaw was still gaping. He's twelve—what did I expect? I never should have picked this fight on the platform. She'd exploited my weaknesses, alright.

I snapped my jaw shut, adjusted my pants, and shrugged on my jacket from the exam table where I'd left it.

"Dude," called Hodgins, when I hit the last step off the platform. "Where are you going?"

I looked back and shot him a grin, ignoring the rest of them. "I'm going to go let Bones exploit _all_ of my weaknesses. In fact, I'm going to see if I can't think up a few more, in the car."

Sweets' and Angela's "Finally!" were the last thing I heard as the lab doors closed shut behind me. I spent the rest of the drive thinking up what weaknesses I could give Bones, then exploit. Lots and lots of exploiting.


	10. The Name of the Rose

Shakespeare once said "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Perhaps to others, this might be true, less observant folk. Not so to the rose itself. The rose is many things, not just a "rose," and it should be called that at the appropriate time in its life—when it is no longer a rosebud, or a rose floret while it's still tight-wrapped, waiting to bloom. A rose is the fully-bloomed flower, different in its full incarnation from what came before, though yes, there was a hint of what it might be while still in the bud. Then the bloom is off the rose, and the rose hip forms from what's left when the petals are gone. The transformation continues across its life span.

I don't like being called Pumpkin. Or Tempe. Those are names from my childhood, from before I became who I am now. By calling me those names, they attempt to call me back to a version of me they knew better, and had some control over my actions. People who shorten my name to Tempe now, without asking how I'd like to be called? Well, you might as well call a rose an iris. It's just not who the rose is.

Dr. Temperance Brennan. It's like calling the rose by the name people know it commonly by. "Peace," or "Golden Celebration," or "Alba." It is a specific name for a particular type of a rose, one marked by the color and floral pattern, the appearance of clusters of flowers, leaves, and branches—its outward appearance. But these common names fail to capture some of the larger nuances, including genus, and type—Is the rose floribunda? Hybrid? Tea? Rugosa? The common name gives you someplace to start, yes, but you need to look further to really find out what kind of rose it is.

Temperance, or Brennan (or even, in one case, just "Bren") are better. If someone asks, these are the names I'll tell them I wish to be called by. I'm giving permission, and information. And by honoring my choice, and calling me by a name of my choosing, those people are accepting my choices about how I want to be called, how I choose to present myself as an adult. They're not trying to hold me to a name that applied a long time ago, to a girl who ceased to exist not long after those names no longer hung in the air. As soon as the voices calling "Pumpkin?" or "Tempe, let's go!" disappeared, so did those names. Same with Joy. That's a name that I never recalled being called by—it doesn't describe who I've ever been up to now, either as a name, or a concept. I am not marked by the word, joy.

When you call something by its proper name, it should encompass all of its iterations—all it ever was, is now, and can be. All the past, all the present, all the possibilities. So, for a rose, it would be thusly: Kingdom: Plantae, Division: Magnoliophyta, Class: Magnoliopsida, Order: Rosales, Family: Rosaceae, Subfamily: Rosoideae, Genus: Rosa, and then the subspecies name. That's the full name of the rose, the one that captures the truth. Because that's the point of a name—to not just provide a linguistic nominative by which to call something in order to make identification possible in conversation, but also to describe the truth about what the thing is. The name can be long or short, it doesn't matter. The only thing that's important is that the name captures the truth.

Bones. That's the real name that describes me, even though it took me a while to discover it. Naming things is serious business, though, and sometimes you need a little help with it—another gardener who loves roses as much as you do, and wants to make sure the flower's properly named, so there's no mistake about what it is. Of course, not all gardeners are as talented as others-- neither are all the garden's visitors, and so while they may have some information, they don't know the full name of the rose-- but the rose does, and so does the gardener who names it. Bones is the name of the rose—no other name smells as sweet.


	11. It's Love, All Around

She hated him the first time she set eyes on him. I didn't blame her, although, my, he was studly. Tres, tres studly. Beaucoup studly, even. But anyway-- she was working a set of remains, and he stepped right between her and her intern, who was trying to bring her a tray so she could make scrapings. I didn't like him much, either, the way he invaded her space. Studly bully. Really studly bully.

"Booth," he said brusquely, looking her over. Pig. Studly pig. "You must be Brennan."

She gave him that look-- the one that makes lesser men shrink and book out of here. Apparently, he wasn't a lesser man, because he stood there and looked back calmly, almost amused.

"Dr. Brennan. Yes. You're the new agent?" She said it as if she was bored. Hell, she probably was. The last two were completely obnoxious, although they were way less hot than this one. I mean, she solved their cases, and they acted like she was a computer-- never listened to her when she tried to talk about the rest of the case, rather than her examination results.

"The one and only." He smirked at her. She gave him that look again, and then stepped around him, reaching to Zack to take the tray he was trying to hand her. He stepped in her way before she could take the tray in hand.

"So. I've got a body. I'll have it brought to the Hoover."

She turned up the glare a notch, and he stepped back, looking startled. Attagirl, Bren. She narrowed her eyes, and replied. "I'll do the recovery myself. And you will bring it back here. The last time your techs touched my remains, it took me three days longer to find the cause of death, the tissues were mangled so badly."

He clenched his jaw, working over what she'd said. "Fine. Get your stuff."

She stared back at him. "I'll be five minutes. You can wait."

He retorted, "Someone's dead out there. Five minutes matters."

She stared him down, and he took another step back. That's my Bren, scaring the studly hot agent. "It'll take you at least a day longer plus three thousand dollars in plane and hotel bills to get the next forensic anthropologist down here from Canada. Get out of my way." She stepped toward him, but he stayed put, his jaw still clenching, until she pushed him out of the way without even looking at him, took the tray, made her scrapings, and handed the scalpel and petri dish, on their tray, back to Zack. He looked stunned that she'd managed to push him, I mean, what a hardbody, but she was stronger than most guys gave her credit for. Him, too, apparently.

She stood, stripped off her gloves, and gave him a look that dripped with disdain. "I'll go get my kit. You wait here." He followed her anyway, so she slammed the door to her office in his face.

"She usually changes into her kit in there," I called out to him. He turned around, looking confused. Not surprising. "You might not want her deciding you're looking. She'll sock you," I added.

"She always like that?" he said, gruffly. "Name's Booth," he said, sticking out his hand.

I came over and shook it. Ooh, studly warm hands, too. "Angela Montenegro. I'm the forensic artist around here. And no, she's not always like that." He started to look relieved when I completed the thought. "She's in a quite a good mood today, actually." He didn't look pleased at the news, but it was true.

She pulled her door open then, clad in her gumboots and coverall, kit in hand. "Let's go," she said, striding out without ever looking back at him. Yeah, she hated him. This was going to be fun. He gritted his teeth again, then jogged to catch up with him.

I called after her, since he'd interrupted me on my errand up to the platform when he came in. "Sweetie! Don't forget to eat lunch! You skipped breakfast!" She ignored me, she always does, but he turned around and looked at me strangely before hustling again to follow her out.

* * * *

Two months later, right after he agreed to let her do more investigative work in the field, she burst back into the lab, mad about something. I wondered what he did this time. He followed her in, trying to keep up. "Come on, Bones, grab your kit and let's go! Here, I brought you coffee and muffins, eat something while you get changed in your office, okay?" She stopped, glared, and paused a moment, before grabbing the coffee and bakery bag, stomping into her office, and closing the door and the blinds behind her. He turned around, his back to her office, standing and waiting with his thumbs looped through his belt, whistling. "Hey, Angela," he greeted me, smiling. Yep. Studly. Tres, tres, beaucoup studly. _And_ he was learning.

She'd taken his coffee and muffins-- she _totally_ loved him. And he made her eat? He _totally_ loved her. It might take them both a while to admit that they didn't annoy the crap out of each other, but if that man cares enough to make her eat breakfast, it's love, all around.


	12. She Stood Up For You

_**SPOILERS FOR THE CON MAN IN THE LAB, S4 E 09**_.

_**I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in saying this was one of the best Bones eps ever, much less this season. There are lots of ways to think about this one, but I was struck by Booth's expression while Bones was toasting him, and what was going on in his mind at that moment.**_

It wasn't a question of whether you were weak. You knew that you were. It was just that there were others who are weaker than you. Mom and Jared, to start. The rest of the world, thereafter. But weakness was a relative, circumstantial thing, and you were proud of how strong you could be, when you worked hard enough, at your best, hardest level of effort. Then things were quiet, and happy, and calm, and nobody got hurt. It was only when you weren't paying attention to everyone else around you, making sure they were taken care of, when things get messy. As long as you were on guard for everyone else, things would be fine. You didn't like to admit that you got tired, sometimes. It meant you were weak, and then someone would get hurt. Inevitably-- like clockwork . Or closing time at the bar.

You got used to not saying anything about what went on at home, though it wasn't because it was "private." It was because it was shameful, even when you were young enough that you should never have needed to know what the word meant. You were always around it, and you felt like an accomplice—if people found out because you said something, though you knew in your heart that what _he_ was doing was wrong, they'd want to know why _you_ hadn't stopped it. That it kept on was only proof that you needed to try harder, be better, do more, so that it would stop, and there would be no need to not say anything—because then there would be nothing to hide. In the meantime, you would keep things to yourself. Except it became not just a coping mechanism, but a habitual way of dealing (or not) with the people around you. What they didn't know, they couldn't expect from you.

But even though you knew all this, at the time you were arguing with her in the observation room, all you could feel was furious. Furious that she, of all people-- someone you thought knew _you_ more than anyone else did-- would instead take the word of your brother. The fact that she couldn't answer when you demanded that she tell you that you weren't weak, that you were strong, that you worked hard enough, and did the best that you could, that you were good enough? The thought that she might actually think you weren't all those things ripped your heart right out of your chest—so you yelled at her, didn't give her a chance to answer you, just ran right over anything she might say as you freaked out, lost control.

Later, you were ashamed as you realized that you had no right to be angry with her. After all, you never gave even her (if you were going to give anyone) any information about yourself, as much as you poked and pried at her, made her tell you her secrets. You were all about investigation, and never about self-exposure. You want to find to find out what made other people tick-- so you can prevent them from hurting other people, or themselves. You were good at that. But still—what did you really expect? You were so afraid to tell her anything that might make her think you were weak, that instead you opened the door to letting Jared tell her something that was just flat-out-wrong—because _you'd_ never let her know any better. Even though that one time you admitted a weakness to her, she didn't care, and put her hand on your arm. It had been a long time since anyone gave _you_ a hand. But she was still working with you, still standing beside you as you leveled a gun at another dangerous man. She was still willing to stand up with you when you tried to protect people.

The more you thought more about it, there were only other people who deserved your anger. There was you, and your brother. You should be angry at yourself—because you should have just said, "Bones, I don't have an easy relationship with my brother, and I would feel awkward if you went to that shindig with him." But you didn't say that, couldn't have-- that would have been admitting you didn't have it all under control. But the ghosts of the past inevitably rose up to ruin things, just when you thought you'd gotten a chance to really have some time to yourself, free of _them_, and needing to fix things for _them_. You thought you'd found some measure of peace, contentment, hell, even _happiness_ with people who let you be how you chose to present yourself. Admitting that it wasn't so simple? Weak. You wouldn't be able to do what you were good out if people found out you were weak. Especially her—even though you knew better, you still couldn't accept it, in your heart. So much for being the heart in the heart/brains equation.

When you thought more about it, you were almost as furious with Jared as you were with yourself. You'd tried to protect him—and you did, from the worst of it, even though none of you escaped completely unscathed. But you _always_ stood up for him, and this was how he repaid you—by undermining your relationship with someone he damned well knew was important to you. You'd tried to avoid saying quite how important, but Jared knew you, as much as you wish that he didn't. What he knew, what buttons he pushed? They still worked. You hadn't escaped, hadn't changed in all the ways that you hoped, turned into the person you wanted to be. But still-- you'd bailed him out how many times, taken the blame, or the yell, or the slap, or whatever worse thing _he_ could come up with, and now your brother was pushing your buttons, over someone you cared about, more than almost anything else. It was like Jared didn't know how to be grateful, didn't understand the danger he put himself in. It was like you hadn't been able to teach him the risks, to make sure he could take care of himself. Or like he didn't even care that you'd tried, though the fact that you did had nothing to do with gratitude. It was family love—or it had been. At some point, it became more a duty than anything else. Someone had to protect them, and it had to be you.

You knew all about that Adult Child stuff, and full well understood all those control freak/ self-esteem issues that went along with it. It made sense, but you didn't have time to go to a million twelve step meetings, once you'd addressed the most pressing problem. The gambling, the loss of control, the weakness. Once you got that obvious symptom of weakness under control? Well, you had a life to live, and you were good at your job, saving other people, the reasons why you'd started doing it completely aside. You liked being helpful—you wanted to stop people from hurting each other. So long as you worked hard enough, kept guard enough, kept doing your job well, then the only person who got hurt was you. That was acceptable—even as tired as you got, keeping guard all the time. But someone had to stand up for other people—and the two that it started with? Well, they were weaker than you. They couldn't, or didn't, stand up for themselves, much less you. That's just how it was.

And now, as she was toasting you at your birthday party, attended by the people who let you be who you wanted to be, you thought back again to that fight in the observation room. Yes, you'd been hurt when she hesitated. But that wasn't really her fault, because _you_ wouldn't let her in, and she had no objective reason to distrust your brother. After all, she trusted _you_. In her mind, she would have no reason not to trust someone _you_ brought up—her trust in you was so implicit that she automatically extended it to your brother. But you'd ignored that, in the heat of the moment. You failed to pay attention to what was really happening. You lost control of your perceptions, of what was real. And if anything was real, she was.

It had all started when she'd asked why "_you didn't get the credit you deserved_," but all you heard was her doubting you, rather than trying to find out, in that blunt way of hers, what happened. She was trying to be a friend, trying to present the only information she had (again, because you never gave her anything to go on) and turn it into an answer, but you? Well, you'd steamrolled her, bullied her into not being able to give you any answer you'd ever be happy with—because you didn't know what answer you wanted to hear, much less what answer was true. _He'd_ done that, when he was picking a fight—he'd done it to Mom, to Jared, to you. Because _he_ knew he was weak, and he wanted you to tell him he wasn't. Which you couldn't do, without sinning—because he was weak, and he hurt everyone else in the process. But you were the one to deny it, out loud, since it protected the rest of them, deflected the attention to you, the one who didn't keep quiet.

Now, realizing what you'd just done? You were nauseous, even as you continued to watch her say sincere, lovely, wonderful things about you. You'd picked that fight with her, overreacted, totally misheard what she'd been trying to say, because it was _his_ voice in your head when you felt you were weak. She inadvertently reminded you that you'd failed Jared again, because he still didn't know better than to stop messing up, and he couldn't help but resent you. But that shocked, confused look on her face at your reaction was what you _should_ have been listening to—not _his_ voice, in your head. Instead, you got in her face, raised your voice, slammed papers right down beside her. It was a slippery slope, and a steep one. Blood told, Jared was proof, even this early on. _He_ hadn't been so bad, either, when you were smaller. And now? You were fighting with her, like she'd done something wrong, when she hadn't. What else would come out if you let go of your control just a little more, as you tried and lost your attempt to conceal all your weaknesses?

The whole situation was a downwardly-spiralling reminder of what happened when you let your guard down for one second. You never should have brought him to the lab, infected them with your past poisons— you never should have let him around her. All your brother did was drag you back and remind you of who you no longer wanted to be, who you thought you'd escaped from. If you hadn't brought him by, you wouldn't have been distracted. You wouldn't have given that sheriff that clue. She wouldn't have gotten hurt. But she had.

And now she was done saying things you'd always wanted to hear, from her more than anyone, and you couldn't even enjoy it—though you should be overjoyed that someone you'd stood up for was standing back up for you, and it wasn't the first time she'd done it, either. She was defending you-- telling you that you hadn't done anything wrong, and that you were good at your job, good at protecting people, good at keeping people from getting hurt—even as she stood there with that sling on her arm. Even as she stood there, living proof that you'd let her get hurt, she was promising that she'd still stand up for you. You said thank you, but all you could think was you'd failed, again.

Even worse, it was like she was reading your mind once she was done, because she was dragging you off to the side, to talk to you apart from everyone else who thought you were strong, believed what you wanted them to. You weren't doing a good job, tonight, of maintaining the affable smile that let people think you hadn't a care, or a weakness, in the world.

She wasn't telling you anything you didn't already know, intellectually. You'd heard it before, from people who'd been through it themselves. But until now, you couldn't accept it. You couldn't apply it to you, or the people you were trying to protect. You couldn't admit that sometimes you couldn't control everything, as much as you tried, and that by trying to hold on, you could actually make things worse.

When she told you? It almost made sense. She always told the truth, after all, blunt and unvarnished as she sometimes declared it. And now, as she always did, in the end, she asked that critical question. "_What if he kills someone_?" Just like their most recent case, her question was the turning point, the point that allowed you to make up your mind, make that last leap to know what you needed to do. To close the case. To stop people from hurting each other. You just couldn't do it as well, without her. But you still couldn't admit it, and instead, you cut into her and saw that sad look on her face reemerge—the one you'd made go away when you'd told the truth for her in that courtroom. Now-- you'd put it back there. _You'd_ hurt her, this time. Even worse, you lied to her then, saying "_we do things for family_"—and she trusted you, believed that you were right, just because you said it.

It was too much. It was the turning point, finally. It was her, or your brother. But she? She stood up for you, more than once, and promised to, into the future—after all this time, you finally felt strong, deciding.

Your brother didn't listen. He didn't want to, no matter how much you cared. It still felt like you'd failed him, but it also felt like you knew what might happen now that you'd let go. You were grieving it now, before what might happen did happen.

And then she was back again. Calling you back from your thoughts so you could be who she thought you were. You admitted something—that you were weak enough to need time. She accepted it, and better yet, still wanted to keep you company, if you wanted it. She wanted to share your cake, even though she knew the part of the whole shameful story she'd gleaned from the others. She still wanted your company, even though she knew more about you, who you were, that you were weak. She still wanted to sit outside in a bus stop with you, her arm in a sling. That smile hurt, when you answered her, but it wasn't the plastic one you usually wore.

She knew how to be quiet, when it came down to it. She gave you time, while she shared the space you'd allowed her to. You let go of another thing, out loud, where she could hear it-- and she still sat there as you admitted another weakness, a shameful thing you thought people would blame you for. Not her. She just shared the space you'd allowed her, and sat there, quietly. By the mere act of still sitting there, she stood up for you again.

Maybe, when you got over letting go of three things in one night, she'd help you let go of some more. She'd promised she'd stand by you in there, and she told the truth.


	13. Gathering Evidence

Evidence

I've been working with him at evidence scenes for six? seven? years now? Three of those years before her. I started working with him from however long it was when he transferred from the Manhattan field office. God, he was a cocky asshole. But a vigilant one. He was always watching the local cops, the witnesses, taking down notes, hounding us for details while we worked. Drug bust, still-warm bleeding bodies, didn't matter. It didn't matter that he was still a junior agent, either. He acted like he was in charge, and, well, cops of all stripes respond to authority when it's properly asserted. And as much of a cocky asshole as he was, as brusque as he could be sometimes, he let you do your job. He took what you told him at face value, though he might ask you a hundred follow up questions that would have you scurrying back for more evidence than you thought you needed.

He made us all better at our jobs, the longer we worked with him, because he looked at everything, tried to make sure that everything had a reason (or not) for being there-- and then could decide whether it needed to be bagged and analyzed too. I'd never wanted to be out in the field. I was always a science nerd, albeit one in good shape. I could weapons qualify, and had, in case someone ever started taking shots at a scene. And I was proud of the way I found things other colleagues didn't-- but I learned even more than him, and learned to take it a little slower that first entry into the scene. To look at the whole picture, first, before focusing in on the details. I got better at it, and over time, got to the point where he didn't ask me nearly so many questions-- because I'd already found things that didn't fit, or were significant, or were things he'd want more information on.

And then, he started working with her, and it was a whole new learning curve. If he'd been a cocky asshole, she was an ice queen. He brought her over to the tech lab to look at a waterlogged corpse, male, 35-40, African-American. Without a by-your-leave, she reached past me to pull on some gloves, gave the body a once over, and turned the head to the side, then replaced it, gently, back in the position I'd had them lay it out.

She then turned and gave me the nastiest, most condescending look I'd ever gotten, even from that Organic Chem teacher who gave me a C when I broke that crucible because I was too busy watching Cindy Hines bend over to pick up the pen she just dropped. "The adipocere on the back of the head, the arms and the torso, is disturbed. What did you pick him up with? A rake? My decomp determination is compromised. I can't possibly tell you how long he's been dead now, except within a month. Do you have a DNA match, at least?"

The scorn dripping from her voice was even more freezing. "No. We were waiting for you to arrive."

She huffed. "DNA sampling should be automatic. You don't need to do anything invasive to obtain an adequate sample. Get me a swab and a dish," she ordered, turning back to the corpse.

He was as steamrolled as I was. I'd half expected him to jump in by this point, like he did when the locals started pushing us around. He might be a cocky asshole, but he was proprietary, too. "Hey! No one bosses my techs around besides me!" he would usually say. But now, he was just looking at her, stunned. Like me. She huffed, and stood, reaching past me to get her own swab and dish, then started explaining what she was doing as if it was the most elementary technique. It wasn't. I'd never seen that before, the insertion of the swab into the nasal cavity with just that twist to "obtain undisturbed sputum from the sinus cavities, less likely to be diluted by the time in the water." She laid the swab down on its dish, then got back to looking at the remains. She clearly expected me to go run the swab. So I did.

She was giving him more hell when I came back, yelling louder about adipocere disturbance and time of death and identity. He started yelling back about what was his job, not hers, and she gave him this look to freeze nitrogen. "Fine. Have someone bring over the x-rays. I'm done with you. I will email you my findings, let you know when a courier can come by for the films when I'm done with them." With that, she peeled off her gloves, tossed off the lab coat she'd imperiously pulled from the stack of clean ones inside the door when she came in, and stalked off, throwing down her visitor's badge and snagging her purse as she stalked out the swinging doors, the force of her pushing through them leaving them rocking, back and forth, for almost a minute after she'd gone. Leaving a newly-disturbed scene. A new trail of evidence.

I turned back to look at him, and there was this furious look on his face like I'd never seen before. Hmm. She'd just brought a new perspective, a new way of looking at evidence.

------------------

I've been working with them at recovery sites for what? three? four? years now? However long it was from the point at which I meekly confirmed, upon further inspection, that the xrays showed COD to be blunt force trauma to the head, microfracturing I didn't see the first two times I'd looked at it, before telling him "there's nothing there" as I sent them over for the Ice Queen's inspection. I stayed out of her way that second case, and watched the way she ordered him around as they hauled up that body, the way she took more care with dead, waterlogged remains than most people took care of a baby. God, she was an Ice Queen-- but damn, she was smart. I watched the way she looked at scenes, differently than he did. She saw things he'd miss. She saw things any one of us would miss. I'd read the case file, after, and damned if sometimes it wasn't the thing that was COD, or source of identity, or some other key.

I learned. I learned to make sure the tissues were undisturbed. That all the surrounding waters, or shrubs, or layers of dirt were carefully, sequentially uncovered, samples of soil, or water, or blood spattered leave taken and photographed. I learned to shine my blacklight over everything, even places I'd never have expected, in all the time I'd been doing this, and damned if there weren't body parts, or spatters, or personal effects under and over and on top and plastered against and behind and across places I'd never have looked. But she found the evidence. So I started looking, and he did, too.

Before she came along, I was still catching up with him, but now, he worked even faster, and the two of them would blow through a scene in minutes, finding all the most relevant things in their first scan, their first pass through. She was too good. I could hardly complain when she brought her own team in, sometimes. They were too good. Even as it annoyed the hell out of me, and even as I intentionally pissed off their entomologist and particulates specialist, I was watching, hoping to learn. There was always something to learn, some new evidence, some new way of looking at things.

-------------------

She was always saying not to jump to conclusions-- to let the evidence speak for itself. Sure, she would propose hypothesis, interrelationships between one piece of evidence and another, but she never speculated-- she always looked for more evidence, so she could be sure. She was methodical, and yet frighteningly fast in her analysis. It drove him nuts, watching her go over things just one more time at a scene, when he was itching to be out on the road, questioning suspects, while she concentrated on gathering each small fact that might somehow factor into the next step of the case. He, meanwhile, was always making intuitive leaps from the evidence she found him, and then they'd have to work backward to connect all the dots. It drove her nuts, but she cared more about the outcome than the precise order of the scientific process, so long as the overall evidence hung together.

There was a lot of speculation about the two of them, on and off of the scene. Were they sleeping together? Was she gay? Because there was no possible way she hadn't already thrown herself at him, like every other woman who thought she had a fighting chance did. Was there something besides her being an ice queen that put him off? Because attitude notwithstanding, she was one of the hottest women on two legs I'd ever seen, that's for sure.

I didn't speculate, though. I'd learned too much from watching them to leap to a final conclusion, though there was enough evidence to allow for an overall theory, based on the facts I'd gathered so far.

First piece of evidence: Each stayed out of the other's way when they were doing their thing.  
Second piece of evidence: Each stared at the other with confusion, or longing, or anger, or affection, or some weltered combination thereof when the other wasn't looking. And sometimes when they were. When they did stare at each other like that, it was impossible to gain their attention until they were done.  
Third piece of evidence: He always stood guard. She always let him. It was clearly a question of letting. She was on guard too, though it was less obvious. She let him not notice it, because she knew he needed to be the one standing guard. But I saw her constantly scanning the room, checking the sightlines.  
Fourth piece of evidence: Each was learning from the other about what evidence to catalog at the scene.  
Fifth piece of evidence: He was less of a cocky asshole, over time.  
Sixth piece of evidence: She was less of an ice queen, over time.  
Seventh piece of evidence: She smiled like the sun when he said something funny, or said, "hey, nice job there, Bones."  
Eighth piece of evidence: He did the same, when she joked or complimented him.  
Ninth piece of evidence: No matter what else was going on between them, they were on the same track, all the time, when it came to the cases.  
Tenth piece of evidence: She let him touch her-- that hand at her back, or a boost out of a hole, or that arm around her shoulders.  
Eleventh piece of evidence: He let himself talk about idle, personal things while they were waiting. He never chit-chatted, before. I learned more about his son and his weekends standing near them in two months than I did in the whole three years prior to her.

The reasonable conclusions factoring into the final proof, which I still couldn't frame in words, were this. They were best friends. They sometimes didn't understand each other. They would kill for the other. They had the deepest respect for the other's expertise. They were in complete agreement as to the ultimate outcome of the case-- justice, whatever that was. They left no stone unturned, which made my job at the scene three times as hard-- but oh, did I learn. And learning? One of life's greatest blessings.

My overall theory was this. They were slowly edging toward one another. She was melting. He was less likely to think the best defense was a good offense. And each was waiting for more evidence on the other. They were still collecting evidence of the other's reaction-- scanning the scene, looking where the other didn't, trying to find out the truth. I think they each had their own theories, and in the end, I think they're the same, but they're coming at it from different angles, which still means that they shoot the other looks of angered, confused, affectionate longing, whether the other is looking, or not.

I just hope I'm at the scene when they've each gathered enough evidence to come to a final conclusion. I just hope they both reach the same conclusion, the same proof, that they love each other, like they do on their cases.

-------

"Hey! Geier! Quit your woolgathering! What have you got for us?"

_Us_. That was another piece of evidence. I wasn't woolgathering. I was contemplating the evidence of the two of them. Not that I'd share that theory with him.

"Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan. We've found blood spatters over here, if you'll just follow me."

I shone the black light on the relevant evidence, and she nodded approvingly, as she half bent to inspect it, saying "Thanks, Marcus," as he left his hand on her back, flicking glances around at everyone else even as he watched her perform the inspection. That look he just gave her as her back was turned was another piece of evidence. Straight longing, this time.

I looked forward to them solving this larger case-- not the one in front of us, but the one in which they each were suspects, suspecting the other, and gathering evidence along the way.


	14. The Loneliest Person They Know

_**Spoilers for Con Man in the Meth Lab. Yet another rumination on the events of the episode.**_

"_You have no evidence of that_," she'd said, despite my knowing them forever, practically. Or as long as I needed to, to understand the truth.

"_Let this one slide_," he'd said, and I'd let him walk away. Again.

"_Evidence. I am comfortable with evidence_," she said, standing and literally dusting her hands as she stalked away from the messy, inconvenient, anecdotal emotions we tried to foist on her. I knew it was a bad idea to listen to Sweets and try this bullshit intervention. She didn't get it. She didn't want to. And frankly, I didn't get her. I never had.

There were some things that were easy to get about her. She was brilliant. She was gorgeous. She was capable in so many ways, so intellectually superior that I spent most days feeling like I was swimming in mud, trying to keep up with her so that I could keep things running while she and Booth were out of the lab. She was honest, painfully so, and so dedicated to her work that I felt like a slacker, though I knew full well that I wasn't.

But she was blunt, and oblivious. She wasn't selfish, she just had no consciousness of others. Sometimes. And at others, she seemed to look through you-- unsettling when you're on the opposite end of it, and you have no idea, whatsoever, of what she's thinking in there. She wasn't cruel, but it was like no one had ever been kind to her, so she had no idea how to extend it to others. She was stubborn. She was convinced of her own correctness- which was a problem, because she usually was right.

I expected Sweets to be more upset than he seemed as we both watched her walk away.

"She didn't get that at all. She wasn't even listening." I almost felt like putting my head in my hands. Maybe we'd made it even worse. He made a face, pursing his lips as he thought.

"I'm not so sure. She didn't say we were wrong... she just refused to agree with us."

I looked at him, wondering. He did work with them on the more "emotional" side of things.

"Do you think that means she'll listen?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I think she'll probably think about it, though."

"This was a bad idea. He's going to kill me when he finds out we said anything to her in the first place."

Sweets looked thoughtful, pursing his lips as he stared off into space. Coming back to himself, he looked at me, having made up his mind about something. "I don't think so, actually. Either she'll decide that we're right, and do something to act on it, or she'll keep it to herself, because she won't want to impose on him."

"What makes you qualified to say how she'll react? You were the one who seemed to think it was alright that she worked herself to a wraith the whole time he was dead." Oh-- I suppose that's my answer then. I did get her, at least a little bit. I, at least, went home and slept for few hours.

He flushed. "Yes, well, I was wrong. I underestimated what it was that keeps the two of them together, the cases aside." He looked embarrassed, but thoughtful again.

"And what's that?" I couldn't help my sarcastic tone.

"Each of them is the loneliest person they know."

It was like a blow to the back of the head with a two by four. Unexpected, painful, and staggering. And totally, completely, right. I never thought he was lonely-- just that he chose to be alone.

She knew differently, when she dragged him off to the side at the bar, when he still wore that serious expression. And she still knew differently, when she quietly picked up that piece of cake and went outside as soon as Jared came back in. She sat down next to him in that bus stop, and wouldn't let him be alone. I didn't need to get her. She got him, that was what mattered.


	15. Even

You felt like she'd betrayed you. She stood there, stunned, while you rounded on her, accusing her of thinking you were a loser-- of letting your brother get to her, and tell her untruths. She didn't really betray you, and she didn't betray you again when she couldn't respond-- she was just bowled over by the force of your anger, which you'd never directed at her before, at least never like that. But it felt like betrayal when she started in on her anthropological crap, so you cut her off, accused her, didn't let her respond. Although it wasn't really betrayal, so much as her naively believe that people would tell her the truth. That your brother would tell her the truth. Well, he'd proven he wasn't reliable.

It felt like a sucker punch. Almost as hard as the time she punched you at your funeral-- when you were bowled over by the force of her anger, which she'd never directed at you before, at least never like that. When she felt like you'd betrayed her by not calling her, and she cut your attempt to greet her off with that fist to your jaw. Although it wasn't really betrayal, so much as foolishly trusting that other people would tell her the truth. That your therapist and colleagues would tell her the truth. Well, they'd proven they weren't reliable.

It wasn't really betrayal, either way, then or now.

It wasn't betrayal then, when you tried to make it up to her, by taking up Zach's letter and sitting down next to her on the stairs. You read her the letter, tried to remind her that she'd done what she could, and that it wasn't her fault if Zach, as an adult, made the wrong decisions. Even if she still felt responsible. She rested her head on your shoulder, as she forgave you. There was no need for words. She relied on you again.

And it wasn't betrayal now, when she came out and asked to sit next to you in the bus stop, brought you birthday cake, tried to remind you that you'd done what you could for Jared, and that it wasn't your fault if he, as an adult, made the wrong decisions. Even if you still felt responsible. Her nearest shoulder was wounded, you couldn't very well rest your head there, as you forgave her. You spoke, instead. You relied on her again.

Now, you were even.


	16. Nothing Personal

_**Nothing personal-- inspired by ****Syzygy, by shipperatheartrealistbynature****, and my own dissatisfaction with the post PITH/WITW episodes. Some things shouldn't remain left unsaid.**_

**---------------------------------**

The only time she told him anything personal anymore was when he caught her unawares. When he told her he'd had to kill Ripley, and her face just ... crumpled. When he taunted her, yes, that was the right word, in Sweets' office about the two guys she was dating, and her loneliness burst through. "All my relationships are temporary," she'd said. Then clammed up, even after his "there's someone for everyone" speech.

She'd been kind to him, sure. Didn't sleep with Wexler. Said "You're a very good father." Got him that chair. Made him that toast in the bar, a most heartfelt and public apology. Brought him cake outside at the bus stop and listened.

But there was no news of her father. Russ and Amy, their girls. He wouldn't even have known about how she felt about her writing, recently, if he hadn't caught her tossing her book that time he stopped by, unexpected, at the lab. She hadn't even said how the book was going, thereafter. He hadn't asked, either. Hell-- she hadn't even discussed Zack with him, before or after he'd taken him back after his clever "escape."

What was wrong with him? What took him so long to notice?

---------------

"Earth to Bones," he called, waving his hand in front of her eyes as she spaced out again on him at the diner.

She didn't startle, Bones never did, but she blinked before returning her gaze to him, her expression serious. "Sorry," she said.

"What's going on in there, Bones?" He said it lightly, but he wanted to know. It had been a while since he'd asked. Since his funeral, really. Since then, there'd been nothing personal from her, unless he surprised it from her. He wanted her to tell him things about her life again. Voluntarily.

"Sorry. Just thinking about something," she answered vaguely, expression still serious. She gave him a half smile, stole a fry from his plate, and chewed it.

"Yeah. You do that a lot. Comes with being brilliant, I guess."

Her half-smile got wider, then dimmed, some thought crossing her face. He noticed.

"Uh... Bones. You... ah... don't talk about what's going on with you anymore, I mean, outside work."

She looked at him, thoughtfully. Not startled. He wasn't going to get anything out of her, he just knew it.

"There's nothing to tell," she said, looking off to the side. "There's nothing going on, just work. Nothing personal, Booth." She looked back at him then, and he saw she was telling the truth, though for the life of him, he didn't know what she meant.

"I've got to get back," she said then, rising and putting down money for her part of the meal. "I need to finish a verification for tomorrow for the museum. Thanks for lunch, see you later." She half-smiled at him again, and walked off.

"Yeah... see you later," he said, turning and watching her disappear out the door.

Nothing personal. Like that personal call he didn't make, after his shooting.


	17. Itch

Her hands itched all the time, now. She pulled out the small tube of lotion from her desk drawer, smoothed a small amount over her hands. Externally, there was nothing wrong with them. No atopic dermatitis, no latex allergy, no latent skin sensitivity burst free from all those years spent wearing examination gloves.

She had lotion everywhere. In her desk. In her purse. In a drawer in the ladies' room. Every room in her house, her glove compartment. She didn't need to wash her hands all the time-- they weren't dirty. They _itched_.

They itched from his crusted blood, welled up and coating her skin as she pressed down on her wound. The sensation of it drying and flaking off in scales-- it itched then, and still did. Her hands itched to punch him again-- to knock him down over and over until he cried, sobbed, literally moaned aloud between wails, like a dying animal, like she had every night those two weeks he was dead. Her hands itched with desire to run her hands over his naked, wet chest as he stood, yelling at her, in his bathtub-- they'd itched to peel away that bandage and see the scar for herself, to feel the warm solidity of him under his hands, to run her hands all over him, really.

Her hands itched, wanting to drop those few ounces of mandible that Zack tainted, the taint now clear as seen through the magnifier, as she realized what those denture scrapings truly meant-- her hands itched not just to drop it, but throw it away, so far she couldn't see it anymore. She'd never wanted to destroy evidence before, but if she'd been alone when she made her discovery, she wasn't quite sure what she'd have done.

She wanted Booth's hands in hers, holding hers, kissing hers, doing whatever it took, until the itch stopped. But they were empty, as always, so they continued to itch. She smoothed on more lotion, snapped on some gloves, and got back to work. Hands itching all the while.


	18. After the First Shot

**_After the first shot-- Spoilers for Con Man in the Meth Lab_**

He hadn't been in a hostage situation in a while, and honestly, she was distracting him. His own fault, really. He kept thinking that if he somehow kept her innocent of the details of killing people in situations like these, he'd somehow manage to keep her safe. Of course, he was wrong. But he had been distracted, whatever the reason. At least the husband and the kid were fine. But he didn't want to shoot the sheriff, and he was hoping that the pump action shotgun he'd leveled at him would be enough deterrent to make the sheriff let go of the woman. He'd purposefully chosen the shotgun-- the sheriff was a moose of a man. There was no way a 9 mm. was going to stop him on the first shot.

But she'd been distracting him, and then he'd distracted himself, the way his heart stopped a beat when he saw the sheriff's eyes dart to the side, that second before he flicked his .45 to the side, aimed and fired. Her soft grunt was all he needed to get moving again, and he advanced on the sheriff even as he heard himself asking her once, twice, a third time if she was alright before he risked a split second glance over his shoulder and the butt of the shotgun. Her "I'm fine," was faint, but she was clutching her arm, not anything worse, and his attention snapped back to the sheriff. The sheriff knew it was over now that he had his complete attention—the sheriff's eyes flicked to the wife, but his heart wasn't in it now that he was faced with someone who could fight back. Would fight back. Would return fire, after the first shot at Bones. So he advanced, knowing the sheriff would discard the woman as soon as he reached his vehicle. He continued advancing, one leg crossing over the other to maintain a stable stance against the shotgun's recoil, once his finger depressed the trigger. There—she was down, rolled away, and clear of the vehicle.

He fired once, twice, a third time, on the run, through the rear window, and the vehicle crashed. He approached carefully—not because he was unsure, but because it was just bad practice to not take every precaution. The sheriff was dead, the shells piercing him, stopping the moose of a man through the safety glass, the grill, his own massive bulk. He hit what he aimed at.

The first shot he fired at the sheriff would have stopped him. The ones he fired after the first shot—those were for Bones, each time he had to ask her if she was alright. The fact that she was standing, right arm the only thing bloody, 9 mm. leveled in her non-dominant firing hand, backing him up as best as she could—that the only thing that stopped him from turning back and emptying the rest of the magazine into the sheriff's body. After the first shot, the rest were just for revenge.


	19. Night Watchman

Night watchman

I have a view of everything and no wonder, this place has cameras _everywhere_— the hallways, the stairwells, the elevators, even the parking lot and part of the street. It's a pretty luxo-development, and the pay's decent, the work not too demanding. My office is just inside the door, so I can see everyone coming and going in the main entryway, although there are sometimes people using the back door, visible in the top right TV screen in the array set out in front of me. The ones on the floor hallways are interesting—they have these fisheye lens things so you can see the whole hallway, see if the tenants allow their visitors entry, all that jive.

He comes by a lot, late at night or first thing in the morning, sometimes earlier. Weeknights, weekends, doesn't matter. At first, I had to call up for her to let him in, but at some point she gave him a key, and now he just lets himself in the front door, coffee or takeout bags or pizza or six pack of beer in hand. He always nods hello, though, acknowledges my presence unlike some of the tenants and visitors. He usually skips the elevators—jogs up the stairwell nearest her door, and I guess it makes sense, the guy's in good shape. It's interesting, though. He always pauses a moment on the landing just inside the doorway before entering onto her floor—like he's listening for something, just in case.

He's got a key to her door, I've seen him use it, but he usually knocks anyway and waits until she opens the door. Every once in a while he'll let himself in, especially if he's got a bag of food—they probably talked beforehand, and she was expecting him.

She always lets him in, though, surprise visit or not—I've never once seen her turn him away when he showed up, though she doesn't always look happy to see him. No wonder, that one time he showed up while her overnight guest was still there. It's weird— he's not her boyfriend, at least I don't think so, but he's here more frequently than some of the partners of tenants who've been in years-long relationships. Certainly more than her real boyfriends ever did, even the one who lived with her.

She's some kind of author, mysteries maybe, and works at some museum or something—the one or two times I worked day shift I signed for all sorts of weird packages for her, including one from Timbuktu, for crying out loud. I always thought that was a made-up place, but she had some weird long package from there. It was crazy—it almost looked like a spear, wrapped in brown paper, though that would be impossible. You can't send that stuff through the mail, can you? I have no idea what he does, or how they know each other, though he's some kind of cop, maybe a fed. I caught the flash of a badge one time at his belt as he waved hello, and he always wears some kind of gun. But sometimes when he comes by in the middle of the night, they come down not long after, her carrying some big bag full of clothes, so I guess they must work together, somehow. Beats me what exactly they do—I never visited anyone I worked with at all hours like he does.

He usually leaves a few hours after he arrives, but sometimes not. He usually looks really tired to begin with when he stays over those nights. If he comes by at the ass-crack of dawn, he usually has breakfast and coffee—always drops me a doughnut or something on his way in. He's a good guy, brought me a bottle of scotch at Christmas last year. Between him, and the huge tip she left me, it was the best Christmas I'd had in a long time.

Sometimes, he leaves looking troubled. I can't tell if they've had a fight, or what, but it's usually on the nights when he lets himself into her place in with his key, or when she takes a while to answer the door where he leaves looking worried. Not that he really leaves on those nights. He just goes back out to his big black truck, pulls his coat on, and sits with the lights off. See, he always parks in the same one or two spaces, the ones with a view up to the long side of her apartment. On the nights when he leaves her place looking worried, he just sits in his truck, looking up at her place-- her own personal night watchman, sitting vigil until it's light out again.


	20. Lie to me

Lie to me

Somehow it had all come to this, a screaming fight in the middle of the street next to his truck, him insisting he was fine, my insisting he wasn't, because he'd been shot, again, intercepting a bullet meant for me, and then killing the shooter. My bullet thudded into the shooter only a second after Booths, my reaction instinctive, driven by the knowledge that Booth had been shot, again. Except it was only a deep graze this time, and he was fine, except that he was bleeding into his shirt, and the sight of it made it impossible to breathe, impossible to smell anything but warm copper, slowly cooling, the smell of it overwhelming everything else.

It started off, of course, with my assertion that I could take care of myself. Despite the fact that my lungs felt like they would explode, lacking oxygen, despite the fact that my heart had stopped beating as soon as I heard his grunt and started seeing the blood again, despite the fact that everything in me was hammering at me to throw myself into his arms and yet run away as fast as I could, I still managed to yell at him. Because I couldn't punch him again, and I certainly couldn't kiss him, hold on to him, never let him go anywhere where he'd get in the way of a bullet ever again.

"Goddamnit, Booth! You can't keep doing this!" Even as I was yelling at him, I was trembling all over. I was sure he could see it.

"It's my job, Bones!" His jaw was gritted around his words, his nostrils flaring ever since I told him I could take care of myself.

"Your job is to catch criminals! Not get in the way of bullets not meant for you!"

"That's bullshit, and you know it."

"Booth, it's just... not, okay! You can't protect me from everything!" He was staring at me as I said it, and as usual when we fought, he was standing on top of me again. Bullying bastard. I was tempted to punch him, now, just to get him out of my space, so I couldn't be tempted to throw my arms around him, feel his warmth, smell that smell that meant _Booth_.

"Goddamnit, Temperance, you don't get it, do you?" He grabbed my shoulders, quickly, his hands closing over me, keeping me from stalking off on him before we finished the argument. "Do you honestly think I'm only doing my _job_?"

I didn't think so. That was the truth. But if he was doing it from friendship, from his instinctive need to protect everyone, well, his death would still kill me. If he was doing it from whatever he called love, well, it would kill me quicker. So I lied to him.

"I don't know what to think, Booth! You belittle my self defense skills, but it seems like when it's come down to it you're not the only one capable of taking lives!"

He was staring at me, eyes boring into me as I yelled at him, teeth still clenched, nostrils still flaring, pupils contracted. He knew I was lying. He always did. But lying about how I'm feeling is an instinctive self defense mechanism, for me, and as scared and angry and fine, completely in love as I was with him, I could hardly be said to be operating logically in conducting an argument that would convince him to stop taking bullets for me.

"Don't lie to me, Temperance. You know why. It's not because of my _job_, Bones. Even _you're_ not so clueless that you can say you don't know how I feel about you."

There it was. He'd been hinting around it. I'd been ignoring it. I still wasn't over the last time he died, and admitting that I knew how he felt, much less how I felt, scared me to death. I inhaled deeply, involuntarily, and his hands tightened on me, as if he knew that I was getting ready to bolt. Mostly, I was getting ready to faint at the sight of that blood still staining the side of his shirt. But his almost-there declaration infuriated me, too, and my response burst out unwilled, even as I partly lied to him again.

"Well, however it is, Booth, and I'd be damned if I know, since you never tell me _anything_ personal. You expect me to read your mind, interpret your goddamned vague promises, sit around on my hands like some war widow until you get the courage to come out and just say what _you're_ thinking for once. Why the hell should I understand anything? Why the hell should I believe you? You want everything from me while I'm living, and give me nothing back that would be of any goddamned use if you died again! Just... stop it. I can't keep doing this. I don't want to, if that's what it means to keep working with you."

His eyes glinted. "You're lying again. You know damned well what I'm talking about."

"I have no idea. I don't know what you're talking about." Another lie, unlike most times when I say it.

His eyes narrowed, and he inhaled, furious at me. "Goddamnit, woman, I love you so much that there's no way you're going to make me stop trying to protect you. I love you, for Christ's sake." His own voice was loud, and passionate, and angry, and completely, totally honest.

"I hate you." Another lie, said weakly, shakily, feebly. "I hate you," I said, trying again, and bringing my hands up to push him away. His hands only tightened on my shoulders, resisting my attempts even as I put more of my weight into it. "I hate you," I said a third time, my voice this time stronger, and angrier, and full of all the rage and fear and loneliness he'd left me the last time. I couldn't take it. I couldn't do it again.

I pushed harder, and he only held on tighter, saying nothing as I repeated myself a fourth time, as he listened, looked, assessing. I was getting ready to push at him once more before I tried punching him when he decided something, said "Goddamnit, Temperance, I love you," and jerked me forward so quickly I crashed into his chest, my hands instinctively coming around to grab hold of his waist so I wouldn't fall.

His arms circled me, viselike, squeezing the air from me even as they kept me from bolting as his lips crashed into mine.

It was an eternity, that kiss. It started off angry, mouths hard against one another, teeth nipping, tongues warring for dominance. I dug my nails into his back, wanting him to feel even a modicum of the pain he'd caused me, unwittingly. But his arms shifted, still holding me tightly, as one hand came up to the nape of my neck to hold my head in place as his own lips softened, and mine did in response. It was no longer about dominance, but acceptance, forgiveness, and apology. I accepted his unspoken apology, my own mouth melding to his. I stroked his lips with my tongue, apologizing for my anger, and he accepted it, shifting his stance to hold me so closely that we might well melt into each other. It went on forever, and stopped all too quickly, both of us panting for air as his hands came up to the side of my face. At some point, one of my hands had drifted up to the back of his neck, holding him to me as much as he held me to him.

His chocolate eyes lightened to fiery amber, he panted, then said, "Lie to me again."

"I hate you," I said softly. This time, I pulled his lips down to mine. "I hate you," I murmured over his lips, then apologized, accepted, forgave him again.


	21. No Surprises

_**Warning: Spoilers for The Bone That Blew

* * *

**_

No surprises

You forgot how much she hated surprises. She still does, always did, even when she was a little girl, hardly higher than your knee. "No! I want to find out myself!" she would say, furrowing her forehead as she set to learning something. She was always curious, always determined to figure things out on her own. She didn't want you doing it for her, or telling her how it would come out before she'd neared the conclusion.

You, on the other hand, were so excited about and impatient to show her the end result, sometimes, that you forgot that the journey was its own reward. She loved the learning, the journey part, and she always got to the end faster than you thought she would, faster than you gave her credit for. Even then, she'd been smarter than you, and she resented your interfering with her process, even as she didn't mind using you as a reference.

It shouldn't surprise you, therefore, that what you'd hoped would be a nice surprise, your working near her in someplace she loved so much, wasn't nice at all, not to her. Of course, the nasty surprise of you and her mother disappearing, and then Russ? Another reason why she always stood back, off to the side, always observing, taking the long look to see what was coming. She didn't like surprises, still. She probably hated them worse than before, because of you. It was your fault, which shouldn't surprise you, though you'd let it.

Really, you only wanted to work with her, be near her, help her with something that was important to her. But even as you told that obnoxious little shit of a shrink (who was right, you _were_ a sociopath, but a charming one, just like he said) that he was full of it for telling your pumpkin that she still had abandonment issues, you figured that it was probably something like that. It wasn't so much that she was afraid of letting you in, in case you abandoned her again, though that might be some of it— it was probably more that she was angry, insulted even, that you would think you could just worm your way in to her workplace and her life without asking her permission directly. You'd betrayed her by not letting her decide for herself whether she'd welcome your working there—re-appearing without warning, just like you'd disappeared, all those years ago. You'd surprised her, put her on the defensive, when really, you should be doing whatever she wanted you to, including staying away. After all, if it wasn't for her, you'd be doing hard time for a killing you had no regrets over, none whatsoever.

You should have been straightforward and honest with her about wanting to see her more. But you were worried that she would reject you, so you forgot how much she hated surprises. Forgot, too, that you had no right to try and make her accept you. She'd be well within her rights, now that she'd set you free, to also cut you loose. But oh, you hoped that she wouldn't.

You had so much to make up to her, and there was no good place to start. You should have just taken what she gave you, and run with it, or asked her where she wanted to go next. Bad enough to assume that just because you'd gotten her started in science, you could still lay claim to her intellectual haven—but you'd invaded her home, and the things she held sacred, as she made clear to you when you tried to surprise her with the help you were just trying to give the rest of her team. She still hated surprises, and now she might even hate you, maybe, for tainting the case.

You watched her stalk off in anger, realizing all over how you'd failed in the past, and failed again just now. You should have just listened to her, not tried to second guess her about the things that she really wanted and needed from you. You'd done okay with her when you were still in jail and she came to see you on her own terms—more than okay, since she put her neck on the line for you. Pushing back at her now that you were out was actually moving the both of you backwards. Now, she didn't even trust you to keep your word, and yes, you'd broken it, by both the letter and spirit. She thought the law was important, respected it, held it sacred, almost. Even as she found the loophole in it, for you, she did it in a forthright, honorable way. With his help.

Him. He took what she gave him, and ran with it. She gave him something to run with—different than you, and no wonder. He didn't rush her, not the way you did. He was like her, in a lot of ways—he needed to find things out for himself, and he didn't like it when other people got in his way. That they were looking to find the same things out, to the same end, on parallel tracks, made it easier for him than for you.

You'd looked into him, of course, when you found out she was working with him. He was a good man. Better than you, certainly. And he was there for her, didn't push her, didn't surprise her. Instead, he pointed things out she might otherwise miss and worked with her to decide how they fit in, let her decide what conclusions she would draw. You wouldn't be surprised if she talked to him a lot about you before and while you were in prison—certainly he'd made it clear to you and your Russell that he really would kill either one of you if either of you left her again. You didn't doubt it—he knew her well, cared about her, cared for her, tried to protect her, and did it all better than you.

But he understood you, too. You'd dug deep-- he knew what it meant to do whatever it took to protect the people you loved. He wasn't a sociopath, though-- he felt bad about the people he didn't hesitate to kill, unlike you.

So you asked him for help, in a roundabout way, and also told him that you approved of whatever role he had or might have in her life. As if he'd ever ask your permission. Hell, if you said no, he would probably laugh at you. Or shoot you. Or both. And the asking was awkward—you shouldn't have joked around with him like that, you really hadn't earned the right—and he looked actually pained after you asked him if he didn't think she was beautiful. This being straightforward thing after years on the run was going to be hard, and was going to take getting used to. But it was going to be the only way to salvage anything with her. You weren't just trying to make nice with him, either, though you knew that if he decided you were bad for her, he wouldn't hesitate to tell her or you so-- and then would do whatever it took to stop you from hurting her. He'd feel bad about it, but he'd do it anyway. If he told you to drop it, you would—he had better instincts about her than you did, anymore.

Of course, he was probably still trying to find out some things for himself, probably exactly where he stood with her—no surprise he might feel uneasy, she'd always refused to say what she thought until she was ready to announce her final conclusion. Your leaving made her even more reticent and reserved than she'd been even then, when she was a quiet, inquisitive, serious little girl. She'd always been solemn, and slow to smile or laugh—even then, she was always assessing. Your leaving her made her grave and lonely, instead, not prone at all to smile, or laugh, or be carefree in any way. She was care full, wary of anyone and everything that surrounded her, and you still weren't done digging up all the information on those foster homes to find out what else might have happened—as though your leaving wasn't enough. It would be hard for him to get her to let all of that go so he could tell where he stood, though by any measure, he'd succeeded where no one else had.

In any event, though, you were pretty sure he was in love with her, not just the best friend and protector she could ever possibly have. That was good. He was a good man, a good father, a good friend, and she was the best. She deserved someone who wouldn't betray her, and would watch out for her so she could do what she did best—find things out for herself, faster and quicker than anyone else. You were pretty sure that she loved him, too, though for whatever reason she was hiding it from herself as well as him. Maybe you'd find out more about why they were still only partners, if he could convince her to let you stick around.

He agreed to say something to her, though he gave you that _look_—the one that said he'd be watching you, and that he was reserving judgment for now. It was fair enough. He was the lawman, an old-fashioned kind, none of this new-fangled crap. He could and would be prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner if the situation called for it. But so far, he'd granted you leniency, and intervened on your behalf. So you did what you could with the reprieve, and tried to make it up to her by doing something for him.

She was too old and you'd hurt her too much for you to be allowed to be there directly for her—she'd surpassed you in so many ways, and in any event, he'd taken a place with her that you'd never fill. But one thing you'd learned is that she would do anything for someone she called family, even you, on her terms. Her family, in turn was loyal to her. The pained looks and troubled countenances all through your trial were testament—maybe you could take care of her people, since she wouldn't let you take care of her. If she would let you be there for his son, because if no one else was family, then he and his son were, well, you'd let her keep you at arm's length—it was still within distance to see her, speak with her, hear how she was doing.

She knew what was coming with the "experiment" with the soda and candy, and the chemical interaction was no surprise to her. But the way her smile bloomed as she enjoyed his son's excitement and surprise was worth every bit of it. And the way her smile bloomed even more, and stayed in place, didn't fade right away, as the two of them talked overhead? That he made her smile when no else did, and that her smile bloomed brighter, lingered longer, re-appeared more often when he was around, rather than with anyone else? That didn't surprise you.


	22. Open & Closed

_S4-- Spoilers Through Con Man in the Meth Lab._

* * *

What I knew about his childhood, if you could call it that, I knew because Jared told me—chinks of images seen through an otherwise closed door. Seeley never said anything. If I asked him a direct question, he would simply say "Leave it alone." If I pressed it, he would leave, altogether. He was resolute in not talking about it, as resolute as he was in dropping everything if he got a call from Jared or his mother. There were still a lot of calls like that when we were first together, when Jared wasn't yet done at Annapolis and whatever was going on at home was still going on—back when he was within driving distance of home, if you could call it that.

I never asked about what happened during those disappearances, though sometimes Jared would obliquely explain things that he or his mother had needed. Seeley Booth, man of the house. Man of the family. Unlike their father, whom I'd never met, never did meet.

He didn't talk about the Army. He didn't talk about the gambling. If it was in the past, it was a closed subject-- he just wouldn't talk about it. It was as if he lived solely in the present, at least until the past called him on the phone and left a message that precipitated another abrupt departure. It was clear the past was complicated, that there was a complex web of experiences under that public persona of his, but he wasn't letting me in. The only consolation to me was that at least I wasn't the only one he closed out.

It wasn't the secretiveness that ended it the first time, or even his savior complex. It was his need for the white picket fence, stay at home mom and kids idealized family he'd never had, if what Jared said was true. I knew no one had it, and he didn't believe me—didn't want to. And his savior complex exhausted me. He could only sit still for a few hours at a time before he was calling in to pick up extra stakeouts and busts. As if he didn't work hard enough the sixty plus hours he was already working as a still-low-on-the-totem-pole agent.

When we met again, he'd moved further from driving distance, down to D.C., and so far as I could tell, was responding to far fewer midnight phone calls from "home." And he had her. She was about as far from the white picket fence ideal as anyone, but it seemed like he'd replaced his Ward and June Cleaver ideal with their weird courtly love/partnership thing, or whatever it was. I admit it, I underestimated her _and_ him—I didn't give him enough credit for having changed. He'd opened up to someone, even if it was just her, and even if the rest of us had no idea how.

But it was true, however she'd managed it-- when we were together, he never would have accepted any help from anyone. Now, he was actively allowing other people to help him. And I'll admit it, I really disliked her at the start, though it's not surprising. We're always threatened by our superiors—though at first I'd tried to paint her into the corner of naïf nerd, and decided to myself that she lacked any instincts to make her of use in the field. I was wrong, and who was I to talk, anyway? I'd come in from the field for a reason—it was too hard, in the end.

Unlike his family, she wasn't just some damsel in distress. That was what really ended us the second time. I accepted the excuse of Epps when he offered it, but it was really over as soon as she found a way to send him that text message from underground—damsels in distress don't send you chemical GPS coordinates. The woman was buried alive, and _still_ couldn't stop working. He wasn't the only one with a savior complex. She was as complex as he was.

As I stood there, afterward, that message deciphered, the hot sun beating on us as the coal ash burned in the back of our throats and turned us all grey, I saw them exchange that look—one I'd never seen him give anyone. An open smile. Not a closed one. It was a complex look, one that said more in the ten seconds that passed between them than in the ten years I'd known him.

I saw that open look between the two of them again and again, now that I could recognize it. It wasn't always a smile—sometimes it was a heated comment, or some mutual moment they'd both recall that happened out of the lab, out in the field. I'd yielded the field. I didn't know her from a hole in the wall. I probably never would, beyond what level of familiarity she allowed in the lab. What I learned about her, I learned from watching them exchange those looks. That look in the courtroom, during her father's trial? I was as closed out of it as anyone else, and yet I felt like my own heart would burst open, watching them.

I therefore didn't press it when I asked him what happened with that RICO case. I knew I wouldn't get any further response once he said to "leave it." He was still closed, to me.

So I tried another tack. I'd had a bad feeling since Jared showed up, and it only got worse when I saw his face close in a bit more around him—and her. But Sweets agreed, so I did something I wouldn't normally do. I tried to say something personal to her. It didn't seem like she took it in, but perhaps that's just her way, because whatever happened thereafter culminated in that toast in the bar.

He'd had nice things said about him before, and I'd been there for many of them. Hell, I'd even said them. But I'd never see him open his ears and listen, like he was listening to her. And I'd never, ever, seen her admit she was wrong. He let her draw him off, then, and again, there was more open discussion between the two of them, that we were all closed off from. Whatever she said, he went out to the sidewalk with Jared, as she watched them, a complex, closed, thinking look on her face. She already had that plate of cake and two forks in her hand before Jared came back in, and looked past him like he was a hole in the wall as she waited for an opening. For her. And I watched it, as he let her in.

As soon as she sat next to him, though, they were closed off again. To the rest of us. From the way she leant across her own body and her injured, sling-clad arm to place her hand on his arm, the two of them were open again. To each other.


	23. Hidden Away

Hidden away

Those long slender fingers, pale hands, soft skin, hidden away under gloves as she delves into the worst that humans could do to each other, then finds that one clue that makes it impossible for the worst of humans to hide from her. They are strong, those impossibly soft slender fingers, and warm, not cool, when they close on a wrist, pat an arm, pull a trigger—before they withdraw back into their gloves, their palms empty again of someone to hold them, empty of someone she could reach out for to hold onto herself.

That pale, perfect skin, hidden away, shielded from sun and possessory looks by sunblock, ballcaps, and sunglasses, long-sleeved shirts, pants and jackets. She rarely wears something overtly revealing, and when she does, she often seems vaguely uncomfortable. But the straight lines of the pants reveal generous curves, and the collars and cuffs of jackets and scarves give glimpses, so tantalizing, of soft inner wrists, collarbones, throbbing pulse points at the neck.

That intellect, hidden behind her closed lips and white-blue-hot eyes, stays leashed until she's drawn her conclusion—at which point she declares the truth, pierces the ones trying to avoid it with that white-hot gaze of hers.

That heart, hidden away behind each sarcastic denouncement of anything "weak," guards untold secrets, is nonetheless laid bare in each averted gaze and unshed tear.

Every once in a while she touches him with those hands, or reaches out and lets him grab hold. That once, she wore that sinful dress, that skin her beauty shone through laid bare, almost blinding. Every once in a while she lets him have it when he is being judgmental, focusing that brain and hot gaze of hers on him until he backs off even as he rejoices that she cares enough about what he thinks to really have at him. Every once in a while, she admits some past hurt, or looks back when he tries to tell her something meaningful and complimentary. One day, every day, she won't hide anything from him.


	24. All or Nothing

She was done with this, exhausted, and furious, and lonely, and terrified by what she was about to do. It was the fourth time in two months that he'd crashed a first date at the worst possible time during each-- every single first date she'd had, citing issues related to a case and in only one instance an actual recovery. At least it was a real recovery this time, or she'd have definitely hurt him to make up for the way he was hurting her. That halfway through each first date she'd already decided that it wasn't going to go anywhere was irrelevant—he still felt free to interrupt her and lay claim to any and all of her time, then drop her off at the end of the night so she could go to bed, alone. Bastard. She could no longer tolerate his attempts to interfere with her private life, if all her private time was going to be lonely.

She knew damned well he wanted her, but she'd been ignoring his and her desire in respect for his stupid line, but it was no longer tolerable. It was tearing her apart for him to keep acting this way when it was his goddamned line. At least she left his private life to him. She wasn't sure how he would respond when she confronted him, but at this point of things she was no longer willing to let things go further, the way they had been. As she took a deep breath, preparing to speak, she noted ironically to herself that she was taking the "heart" part of his "heart" part of the partnership out of his hands.

"Someone for everyone," she said quietly, just as he was letting her off at her apartment, his own hand on his door latch as if he was planning to come upstairs with her. Without her asking him or his even offering. She was furious all over again at his presumption—it was past midnight, and they'd have to be up early tomorrow to start more work on the case now that she'd seen the remains back to the lab. He either assumed they were eating, or that he was going to crash on her couch. Not tonight, he wasn't.

He stilled, his head turning to look at her, hand still on the door, uncertain for once as to what she was talking about. Her face was totally still. Not good. That meant she was furious. "Sorry, Bones? What?"

"Someone for everyone, Booth." Her eyes were cold, her voice even. "That's what you said, four months ago in Sweets' office, right after you interrupted another date I was on. It's peculiar, your timing, Booth. I'm beginning to either believe in some of Hodgins' conspiracies, or think that you're jealous. Although I can hardly think why, since you've made it clear that people who work together professionally can't be involved."

He sat there, mouth open, shocked that she'd call him so bluntly on something he counted on her being oblivious to.

"You did it with Sully, too, now that I think of it," she continued, her eyes piercing him, her voice getting colder, her eyes icier, too. "Let's see, though, Booth. When was the last time I crashed an evening you spent with my boss? Or anyone else you were involved with? Or investigated someone you were dating, just so I could tell you what a bad catch they were?"

She paused, her nostrils flaring, as he sat there, completely astonished and horrified at how angry she was.

"That's right," she said, noting his silence, "never. Because I respect your privacy, Booth, and assume that whomever you sleep with is none of my business, no matter what I may think of them, or you. Including your rampant unprofessionalism in sleeping with someone in a position to fire me, your so-called partner, as well as approve or disapprove the evidence our team works on. But despite all your fine speeches about there being someone for everyone, Booth, you seem to be awfully interested in my not meeting _anyone_."

"Bones," he said, gulping. "I, uh…"

"You can't have it both ways," she said, staring at him, willing him to pay attention. "Make up your mind which side of your line you're on, Booth. In the meantime, you'd better call before you stop by my apartment on professional business, and don't interrupt me on another date unless it's a recovery. Even temporary relationships are better than none whatsoever. "

"Bones, I, uh…"

She almost felt sorry for the way she'd completely blindsided him, but having finally realized that he was trying to play both sides against the middle, she thought that was the expression, she was mostly just angry. He literally looked like she'd punched him in the gut, practically gasping for air. Good. Now he knew how she felt when he came back from the dead.

He tried again. This conversation was not going well, not at all, not in his worst nightmares had their first conversation about how her felt about her gone the way this was going. "Listen, Bones, I…"

She reached across and put a finger across his lips, stopping him from saying anything further. The bold movement, for her, shocked him again.

"You've tried to have it both ways for a while, now, Booth, but you can't. I'm done being just partners with you. It's all or nothing, your call. Just make it sometime before the end of the day Friday, since as I'm sure you've already made it your business to know, I have another date then, and I'd rather call off the date beforehand rather than gain a reputation as a hopeless workaholic with a jealous caveman of a partner. So it's either all, which means work partners and no line, or nothing, your precious line intact because I won't be your partner for you to need a line against, Booth. I'm calling our old deal off. After this case is over, we're through, at least both ways like you've been trying to have it."

Her finger was still on his lips as she spoke, and he couldn't have moved for the shock that the contact sent through him, much less respond verbally. She took pity on him as he swallowed convulsively, his eyes starting to actually glimmer—so she decided to give him one bit of help, one verbal clue as to how she thought this conversation should end. She hoped he'd agree.

"I wouldn't posit a choice if there weren't one outcome I preferred, Booth. See you tomorrow."

Her face by this time had softened, her voice too, and as she removed her hand from his face, he found himself unable to talk due to the lump that rose in his throat at the thought of her walking away from them, even as she said she didn't really want to. In slow motion, he watched her get out of the truck, close the door, and head up her walk even as his brain said she could hardly walk away from a "them" that never existed outside his head.

And then the slow motion sped. Throwing the door open, he got out and sprinted up the walk to catch up with her, not daring to grab her in case she karate chopped him, and instead running to circle in front of her so she would stop walking. She did, and looked at him quietly. She'd done speaking. If there was more to be said, it would have to come from him.

"All," he managed to say, chest heaving like he'd just run a marathon, rather than run twenty feet from his truck to where they were standing. It wasn't eloquent or romantic, nothing at all like any of the stupid things he'd rehearsed, but the thought of letting her think he had to think any more about it than the infinite ten seconds or so that had just passed made him almost as nauseous as the idea of "_nothing_," as she posited it.

"Good," she said quietly. "Now go lock up the truck, and let yourself in with your key. I'll order some Mee Krob while I change."

He would have made some crack about how she could wait just two minutes while he locked up the truck, but he'd made her wait long enough, he now realized. It was his turn to play catch up.

"Be right there," he replied instead, then ran back to the truck, slammed the door, locked it, and ran back up the walk toward her building. He made it in the front door and into her elevator right before the doors closed.

"Good timing," she said, a small smile at the edge of her mouth. "Finally."


	25. The View From My Desk

The view from my desk

I work at a desk. I'm happy to, really. I love my phone, my computer, my drawer full of snacks, the few photos of my mom and my girlfriend. I love digging into stuff, finding out information, helping catch the bad guys. I love working at my desk, too, since let's face it, I've got a bad back, I love doughnuts more than my waistline, and I couldn't consistently weapons qualify for serious field work if my life depended on it, which, of course, it does. But give me a spreadsheet? A database? Background information buried on microfiche somewhere in Omaha? An undercover op where they need some nondescript, pudgy-faced yes man to dig out that information they thought they'd buried under wherever the hell Jimmy Hoffa was? I'm your man.

He knew it, too, which was great, so when he asked me if I wanted to follow from Narcotics when he got the SAIC promotion to MCU, I jumped at the chance. Most of the agents and SAs are condescending to those of us who stay on the inside, but he knew I could find the world from my desk if he asked me to. So he asks me to find the world, often. It's great. And he trusts me to handle the boring stuff, work it up almost to the end before handing it off to him—he doesn't breathe down my neck or double check my work, either, before doing whatever else is needed to finish the investigation off. He trusts me, which makes even the boring stuff exciting.

He has great cases—big ones, lots at stake, lots of press when he solves them, not that that's what he's after when he's trying to solve them with her. But those cases are a challenge, and I like a challenge. He does, too, though it's the justice he's after first and foremost. But if it's a challenge, he likes it even more, though if you didn't know him, you couldn't tell that he "likes" things when his face gets very still as his mind starts going a mile a minute as he plots out where to go next on a case—the more he's thinking, the stiller his face gets. But you can also tell that he likes things when he smiles that small smile right before he learns something big, or nails the bastard to the wall in the interrogation room. It's great to watch—sometimes when he's collared someone and I've been helping out a lot on the case, he'll let me know and I can go down to observation to watch while he or both of them skewer the suspect and make him confess. He doesn't smile when he solves a case, their work is too serious for that, but he does get this satisfied look, even when he's tired.

Some of my friends from the academy don't get how I can like my desk so much. Yeah, I hauled my ass over the obstacle course and can shoot a gun if I have to, hit what I'm aiming at better than your average Joe, but they don't get how I could possibly be happy. "Don't you miss the excitement?" they ask. "Don't you get bored?" they wonder. "Don't you get tired of the same view, the same four walls all the time?"

How the hell could I be bored? I get to help catch serial killers. I helped track down someone who ended up getting rid of the most corrupt Dep Dir we'd ever had. I get to call him in the middle of whatever he's doing and say my four favorite words: "There's a new case." He always takes my call, or calls me back right away if the call goes to voice mail.

And how the hell could I get tired of the view from my desk? I see into people's bank accounts, wills and testaments, every dirty secret laid bare, if I just dig hard enough. Which I do, including all the medical technical science mumbo-jumbo I can't do a damned thing with, but which I can find anyway, then send over to that brain trust of his down the street. They're great—they call me up to say thanks all the time, sent me over some doughnuts, too. "Couldn't have done it without you," they say. I don't care what other jockeys say about squints. His are a good bunch.

When the case is over, he always makes sure to give credit where credit is due, even though he's about the least touchy-feely, least verbally effusive person I know. But a "thanks" means something from him, and he follows it up. I've got more commendations for "assistance above and beyond" than any other desk jockey in the building, combined—and those are out on my desk for the rest of them to see, the lazy bastards. I've got a great view from my desk, actually.

My job has a great view, really. From the observation room, I get to see when the two of them make those scumbags pay the piper, playing with them like two cats with a mouse who doesn't know what's hit it. I love watching the two of them at work—it's amazing all the way through, from the beginning, when they're sitting in his office, talking with witnesses or the victim's family, through to their work in the interrogation room, questioning suspects or getting confessions. I even got to go to court a few times— it was so great to see him testify about how the stuff that I found led to them finding the suspect.

I don't think he knows, though, exactly how much of a view I really have from my desk. I can see right into his office, though I don't sit directly outside—but I can see everything when the two of them are fighting, and she's right up in his face, or when they're trying to hash out the next step to take in the investigation. She gets him worked up like nobody else does, even when she's not here. When she was kidnapped, I was working late pulling whatever I could on the Gravedigger-- I don't think he knew I was here when he whipped that sellout K & R weasel on his table and threatened to kill him. His face was as still and silent as marble that time. I wouldn't dare tell him that I saw, but I don't blame him at all, either. I wouldn't tell anyone else, either. Yeah, most Agents don't actively threaten to kill people, and mean it, inside the Hoover, but this? Well, I think he'd have been justified.

I'm also pretty sure he didn't know I was still here, working late, during her dad's trial, when he'd come back at the end of the day, sling his feet up on his desk, and just sit there, staring up at the ceiling or with his hands over his face for long minutes before he got back to work, his face nearly immobile, on the administrative shit I tried to whittle down to manageable piles for him. I always try to keep it under control for him, but that week, especially.

From where I sit, I can see how he watches her every time she leaves his office, striding off like she always does without looking back. She's always moving ahead, that one. And he's either sitting there, watching her go, or walking just a step behind her, still watching her. Most of the time, he has that still look on his face as he still figures out what to do next as he's walking behind her, but sometimes, especially when he's the one who's gotten her all riled up, he has that small smile on his face, like he's just learned something that's going to help him crack a case. He likes the view from behind her, and not just because she's the hottest thing on two legs—she's just easier to watch and learn about when she's not looking.

Office gossip being nothing more than glorified high school like it is, there are all the usual "does she like him," "does he like her" bull. Of course he "likes" her. He's only human and she, well, she's not a goddess, but she's pretty damned close, big words and hot temper notwithstanding. Whether he "likes" he isn't the question. And you can't solve the case if you don't know what questions to ask. There's a reason why those other desk jockeys aren't as good at their jobs, which is, of course, why he relies on me instead of the rest of those bastards. I'm good at my job because I know what questions he's asking, and can pretty much figure out what he needs the information for, how it's going to fit into the rest of the case. The question isn't whether they "like" each other. Of course they do—they're still working together, and given that they both have foul, egotistical tempers, that's really saying something.

The real question, I think, is when he's going to find that piece of information, that integral key, that makes her turn back and look at him the way he looks at her. And then, maybe, she'll have the same view of him that I do from my desk. It's a great view.

* * *

_**Well, there's your Charlie fic. He hasn't been on this season, yet, so if he's on again, perhaps the muse will prompt something more.**_


	26. Look out

Look out

All his life he'd looked out for other people—people who needed him, who wanted his help. He'd come to define no small part of himself by that role. As the big brother and eldest son standing up to his father, as the jock who learned not to pick on the geeks, and encouraged the rest of his buddies to find other things to do with their time, to his time in the Army and then to his work at the Bureau. Sometimes he got thanks, but that wasn't the point. The point was that if someone needed or wanted him to look out for them them, then he would. It was just what he did, what people expected of him.

Which was why you could have knocked him over with a feather that first case when she had one of the squints deliver a message that she'd preceded him to a scene. Who the hell did that, much less a squint? And then to arrive and find that she'd already cornered the perp, and then shot him to stop him from destroying the evidence? She was utterly fearless, and that scared him. He was scared for her and of her.

She beat the crap out of people, clotheslined and collared suspects, and had no qualms about getting physical when they were out on their cases, did whatever she could to fight for their victims, looking out for them no matter what-- her fearlessness scared him even more when it resulted in that gang hit getting put out on her. He'd been so scared that he'd run that asshole down in that alley—though of course he'd have riddled the bastard with bullets if it was needed. When the hell did that happen, that she was a brother in arms? She was more fearless than his actual Army brothers in arms—more loyal, too.

He continued to think she was fearless, until someone took a shot at her, and suddenly he realized—she _was_ scared, she just hid it so far deep down that most people never saw it. And she didn't ask for help, ever. Even less than he did, when she had every right to be afraid, but instead she kept on protesting she would be fine by herself. It was astounding—no one he'd ever offered to help had refused him, and he couldn't understand why she had. So he foisted himself on her, part protective, part curious about why she would refuse help most other people would beg for, and felt nothing but relief right before the force of the fridge knocked him out. He was bigger than her, so he'd be fine, was about his last conscious thought.

When he realized that he'd made a mistake trusting Kenton, he was more scared for her than he ever had been before. That whole way to the warehouse all he could think was "you failed her, she needs you, you failed her" over and over-- that he was just in time was due more to luck than anything else. She'd been so afraid, almost hysterical, and for the first time, she actually let him do something for her, not that she had much choice if she didn't want to hang there from that hook all day—but still. He'd never seen her cry before, and she was so scared, still, that she was shaking and gasping when he unhooked her.

Later, of course, he read the rest of the file on Kenton's confession, as well as her medicals, since it was all part of the paperwork—she'd kicked the crap out of him before he pistol whipped her, even though she was so much smaller than him and had to know there was no way she was going to make it out on her own. She was a fighter, even when she was probably terrified out of her mind—and she still didn't expect anyone to take care of her. So of course when she said she was "fine" when she woke up with the crap beat out of her in New Orleans and no idea how it happened, there wasn't any question at all in his mind that he would be on the next plane down there. She was a fighter, so he told her so, though the whole case scared the crap out of him—but what scared him the most was that she would have dealt with it all on her own if he hadn't decided he wasn't going to let her. He just didn't understand _why_ she never asked anyone for help, even when as strong as she was she couldn't deal with everything.

It broke his heart more than a little after they found her mom and started to dig—he finally realized that it wasn't that she didn't _expect _anyone to look out for her—she didn't _believe_ anyone would look out for her, much less wanted to. She just kept telling herself what she needed to know in order to take care herself there in that barn—and barely put up with him telling her that he knew it, too. She didn't expect anything from him, from anyone, really.

She didn't need to believe he'd look out for her—he just would, because she didn't expect him to.


	27. Nightmares

_**Nightmares**_

She was eaten by dogs after having her throat slit.

He didn't wake up after that refrigerator blew up, and his pulse stilled, his lungs quieted, and he turned cold under her hands, despite all the CPR she administered before the ambulance arrived.

She didn't shoot Gil Lappin in time, and he bled out in front of her.

He didn't make it to her apartment in time, and she wasn't armed to hold Epps off-- because she'd taken his warning about having a gun to heart at just the wrong time.

He bled out in front of her on the floor at that club, and he never came back after his funeral.

Zach couldn't figure out what that text message from underground meant, and they never saw them again.

The Mara Muerte leader, Ortiz, made good on his promise-- making good on his own promise solved nothing, even as he carried it through.

He was already dead by the time she and her father made it to the airplane hangar and found him.

Zach did figure out what that message from underground meant, but they were killed by the aftershock of the airbag explosion, and that plume of dust signalled their final breath.

Epps shot him.

Zach figured out what that message from underground meant, but there was no plume of dust, and they only found the car, days later, the airbag having never exploded and the two of them having just fallen asleep.

Epps' weight pulled him over the balcony too, because she couldn't grab onto him in time.

That sheriff's bullet didn't graze her arm, but thudded solidly into her heart, or her lung, or some other critical place. That he pumped the sheriff's body full of bullets meant nothing when she bled out in front of him.

Every time either one of them had been shot at but missed, the shot connected instead.

Each had a variety of nightmares, but they ended the same way, for each of them. He never told her how he felt. She never told him how she felt.

---

They had to share a hotel room one night, though there were separate beds. It had been a hard at the end, chasing the suspect, and they'd both gotten shot at, two near misses, again.

They both woke up gasping, bolted upright, unseeing for the moment as they stared around, then saw the other. Visible, tangible proof that he was okay. Visible, tangible proof that she was okay.

They both said it, at the same time, their hearts in their throats. What would he think? What would she think? Either way, the thought was the same-- "_I can't do this anymore. Not like this._"

"I have to tell you something." Two voices, the same thought, the same reaction afterward. No more nightmares.


	28. Ground Rules

_**Spoilers Through The Bone That Blew—there were a lot of things that bothered me about this episode, despite all the great B/B moments, and *swoon* the ending catwalk scene. I wish there'd been some closeout scene to follow up what I thought were some ridiculous parts to the conversation between Max and Booth.

* * *

  
**_

**Ground Rules**

"We need to talk."

"Jesus!" I said, startling. I didn't even hear him come up behind me until he spoke. I'm getting old, I guess.

He snorted at my exclamation then sat down on the stool next to me. He didn't look at me right away, just smiled at the waitress, who promptly brought him a cup of coffee, already made the way he likes it, probably, and said "apple, cherry, or lemon meringue?"

"Cherry," he said. "Ice cream, too, please?" he then added, giving the waitress a smile that would get him a whole hell of a lot more than ice cream if he asked nicely again. Damn, he's even more charming than I ever was. Good thing he's not my age, and I never had to compete with him for my Ruthie. I wondered what he wanted. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut about the paternal approval thing. That kind of stuff's pretty old fashioned, and he's got to have some kind of reason for not having made a move on her yet.

I took a sip of my coffee while I waited, then picked at my salad. Goddamned cardiologist says I have to eat more vegetables if I want to enjoy my grandkids. When she placed the pie in front of him like it was a trophy, he smiled at her again and gave her a "thanks." She practically melted.

He took a sip, took a bite, and smiled to himself at the flavor. I never was a fan of cooked fruit, myself, though a slice of banana cream pie every once in a while isn't bad. The initial period of making me wait while he got himself situated (damn, he's good, it just took me until now to realize that's what he's doing, I'd gotten used to him knowing I was on his side and letting his guard down a little) was finally over when he took another sip of his coffee, then turned and looked at me with those deep brown eyes—pinning me in place. I might as well be a butterfly on a stickpin.

How the hell does he do that? They could be warm and chocolaty, those eyes, though I'm no poet, when he's talking to his little boy, or my little girl. But I'd seen them blackened with anger when he pounded me out in that parking lot. Yeah, I never should have punched him in the nuts, but I could tell he was ready to beat me to a bloody pulp with no remorse, and I'm too damned old to get over that quickly. I had no doubt, though, that he wasn't even that mad at me right then—and I knew that "black as night" wouldn't mean jack if someone got him really angry. Black like a black hole would probably be more like it—depthless and destroying, sucking in everything with the bad luck to pass by after something made him that angry. It was why I liked him—he had a lot of self-control, so it would take a whole hell of a lot to make him that angry. It would probably take danger to people he considered "his" to protect before he'd unlock it enough to make use of that energy—and I had no doubt that he'd do whatever he thought he had to. Another reason I liked him.

"Couple of ground rules, Max," he said finally, after looking at me long enough that I was inwardly squirming. Not outwardly, yet, but I'd no doubt that if the kid was mad enough, squirming would be the least I would be feeling.

"Ground rules for what?" I heard myself say.

He looked at me measuringly—he gave me that look before, in that interrogation room, when he knew he had me but still needed more proof than those phony papers he couldn't get prove. It was what I thought of as a "catch and release" look. He'd caught me, and was going to let me go, but like a stupid fish who can't resist the lure (of seeing my Tempe) over and over again, he was going to catch me again, waiting patiently, like all serious anglers do.

"You. Your being around. Your working at the lab. Your claims on Bones' time, when she's already made other plans that don't include you popping in and out as you please." He gritted his teeth, looking annoyed. He took another bite of pie, another sip of coffee before talking again.H

"You had no right to take that job at the lab without consulting Bones first," he said, his eyes boring into me.

"She would have said no," came out without my even thinking about it. Shit. He was good.

He quirked an eyebrow at me. "Isn't she entitled to say no? Max, she put her neck out for you in that courtroom-- if she never wanted to see you again, I can't see as you'd have any right to say anything about it."

Well, that was a kick in the nuts. He just looked at me, unamused by my surprise. He wouldn't be—he's not sadistic, he's just purposeful. He had a purpose here. But I felt the need to defend myself.

"She seems to be okay with it now…" I began.

Now, he looked amused. "Yeah," he drawled. "Because you asked me to say something to her, and only because I asked her to do me a favor after she already said no."

Oh. So now I owed him a favor. Shit. He was better than good.

"I'm gonna tell you a thing or three, Max," he said, then motioned his fork at my salad. "You eat your veggies, there, though. Bones wouldn't like it if you popped off from a coronary after all that work she put in on you."

He took a few more bites of his pie, then nodded at the waitress when she looked over. She popped right over with a second piece, complete with ice cream, and a warm up for his coffee. Where the hell does he put it? The kid's in good shape, but you can't be eating two pieces of pie at a go whenever you feel like it.

I stuffed some more damned raw cauliflower and lettuce into my mouth and chewed like a cow. I hate salad. And goddamned vinaigrette. The things I do for my kids. I was halfway through a mouthful of olives and cherry tomatoes when he started speaking again.

"Now, I know you've known her longer, years-wise, than I have, but I think I have a better sense right now of who your daughter is than you. Though I'll be damned if she still doesn't surprise me," he grumbled, then slurped his coffee. He set the mug down, and turned back to look at me.

"Bones doesn't like surprises. And you can't push her to make a decision. If you push her and try to get her to come around to what you want her to think, it'll backfire. She's got to get there on her own, Max. If you don't let her figure it out for herself, on her own time, then she'll just shut down and refuse to give you any answer at all."

I couldn't help but be mad at him telling me he knew his daughter better than I did. "She loved surprises when she was little," I protested.

He interrupted me, nostrils flaring. "Loved. Past tense. When she was little. Also past tense. What kind of a surprise was it when she found out you two were gone, huh, Max? She doesn't even like it when I show up with coffee without calling first, Max, and I've been working with her for almost four years. I mean, the woman's killed two people for me and yet she still gets cranky if I don't order the same Thai Food every time I get takeout. How do you think it made her feel that you just popped up again and acted like it was okay that you invaded the one place where everyone else knows not to surprise her, knows not to push her, and trusts her to come to the right decision _every single goddamned time_ if you just let her do her own thing?"

I shook my head, realizing. He was right. I hadn't seen it, initially, but it was true. The team working with her gave her space, even that boss of hers (who now to think of it, did look uneasy when I came in to meet with her about the job)—and every single damned one of them offered her information like it was some piece of a holy puzzle that she, the Grand Priestess Scientist, was going to snap into place. Which she did—my pumpkin's brilliant, way smarter than I'll ever be.

"I just want her to be happy," I said. Well. That sounded pretty Feeble Old Man.

He looked at me, some expression somewhere between pity and sympathy on his face. "Max… she's not a happy person, not the way you mean it. She's never going be some happy-go-lucky person who cracks jokes and smiles at the drop of a hat. She's been through too much. She's always going to be kind of reserved, and her default mood is always going to be serious. What you want, Max, for her to look up when you come in the lab, and drop all her toys and run over to say '_Daddy_!' with a smile on her face?—it's never going to happen. The best it's going to get is when she's content, and she has time and space to think about things and make up her mind, and then she can enjoy what she's chosen to do."

Christ. Two kicks in the nuts in five minutes. Tenacious asshole that I am, though, I couldn't really give up. "She's been through too much… what the hell does that mean? Her brother and I can take care of her…"

He clenched his jaw again, flared his nostrils again, and leant in, voice low. Oh, holy shit. Black as a black hole was right.

"You can't take care of her, you didn't take care of her, and you have no idea what she's been through. _You failed, Max_. You can't expect her to just throw her arms open every time you pop back up again—and by the way, mind telling me where you've been since your trial until a week ago, hunh?" He paused long enough to inhale a furious breath. He was literally seething, and he only got madder as he continued.

"Her foster kids file? It's a horror show, Max. And all those little foreign digs she goes on, Max? Her State Department file's practically six inches thick—suspicious natives in war torn regions tend to think academics are spies in disguise, Max, especially when they're working on genocide cases for the U.N. Talk about nightmares. Suspicious guerrillas, too."

"And she told you that?" I asked, amazed and horrified all at once.

He shook his head. "No. And she'd shoot me if I told her, too—so if you tell her, I'll do worse than shoot you. She needs her privacy. No, I pulled the files when we found your wife, Max, thinking I might find something that could be helpful. Instead I didn't sleep for three days and wondered how in hell she got out of bed every day and went to work instead of curling into a ball in the closet like I probably would." He looked off, remembering something, then took a swig of coffee and some more pie, suppressing the memory.

He spoke again, then, looking a little less furious, and "Which is all just to say, Max—Bones can handle pretty much anything, but you've got to let her handle it her way. You try to push her, and she'll freak out."

"That boy shrink says she has abandonment issues," I ground out. Boy, I thought he was full of shit when he said it. I was glad I stuck him with that check, later.

"You think?" he asked, his tone almost nasty. "She pounded me once when… well, suffice it to say, when I didn't make sure she knew when I'd be back from an assignment. Nobody's knocked me on my ass like that in years." He shook his head, then looked at me again, pinning me in place like a specimen.

"Don't rush her, Max. Give her some evidence she can work with. Be around. Be available to help, if she wants it. Be encouraging, but don't come right out and say what conclusion you want her to draw. If you leave, let her know when you'll be back, and don't be one minute late. She'll figure it out, even if it seems painfully slow to you. But see, you've got to understand—you've got no say, none whatsoever, in how long it takes her to make up her mind. Got it?"

I nodded. There wasn't much else I could do. Suddenly, I realized I'd made a piss poor mistake back at the lab when I told him I approved of whatever relationship he might pursue with my daughter. He didn't need my approval—didn't want it, either. The only approval he needed, if he even wanted it, was hers. And he damned well wasn't going to show me what he wasn't going to show her—at least until she was much closer to making up her mind about whatever conclusion he hoped she might draw.

But I could let him know I was starting to understand, just a little. "She still lets you show up unannounced, even though it annoys her."

He'd finished his pie and was swilling the last of his coffee when I said it. He shot me a sidelong look, then a grin.

"That she does, Max," he said, standing and slapping me on the back before sauntering off. Sticking me with the check, and not like it wasn't time I started to pay. Boy, he was good.


	29. A Favor

_**Another internal monologue for the end of The Bone that Blew**_.

A favor

"_I know you, Booth. You're trying to do me a favor, by telling me it's a favor for you_," I say, lying with everything in me, and hoping he'll call me on it.

He thinks I'm completely clueless about the way people talk about us. Maybe he even thinks I don't know how I feel about him—or that I truly only think of him as a friend. For all his gut instinct, for all his good aim, his instinct and aim are off the mark.

"_Sometimes it's hard to appreciate what you've got_." I'm a better liar than he thinks I am. Of course I appreciate what I've got. The best friend anyone could ever have—but not more.

Of course I love him or whatever you call whatever it means when you can't stand the idea of not having someone in your life, every day. I missed him more than I missed my parents when I thought he was dead. And his overblown alpha-male tendencies—of course I can appreciate the fact that he wants to protect me. It just takes getting used to—nobody did for a long time that it was hard to accept that he was serious, and meant to be consistent.

He's always been there for me, and I've let him. But if he wants more, and I think he probably does—you don't look at your partner and friend the way he looks at me, smiles at me with that quick grin or that slow smile and have it be "just" friendship—well, he's not ready yet, so how can I possibly be?

He's not ready, because he knows far more about me than I do about him. He's always held something back, even as I've let him know I trust him with everything. He doesn't yet trust me, not fully, even if it's because he's afraid of what I'll think, or isn't willing to burden me with something. It feels like he wants me to unload everything, unpack, air out all my dirty laundry—while his remains bundled tight in an oversized duffel he can grab and throw over his shoulder at the first hint that I might no longer welcome him. Does he really think I'm that fickle? That shy of commitment?

My work-invading father aside, I've known Booth for four years. If he'd just relax a bit, show me the same level of trust I've shown him… I'm bad at relationships, but even I know you've need equal levels of trust in a relationship. As long as he thinks there's something about him that he needs to protect me from—well, I can only do for him what he's done for me, and be there just in case. When I put my foot in it with him, it's invariably because I've misjudged something because I just don't have enough information about him to go on.

But it's been changing. How can he think I don't notice how he acts when I see other men, that's not the way a concerned friend or brother acts, not by a long shot—if he thinks I can't tell what that pained grimace meant after I sent Ian Wexler on his way, or couldn't tell what he mean when he interrupted my date with Jason (and admittedly, I shouldn't have seen him or Mark, but a woman gets lonely and Booth's never volunteered what he does on his off time)—well, he's just wrong. And yet—he's talked more about Parker, been more open about how he feels in these last few months, even that one choked-out three word admission that only starts to hint at his childhood, than the past three years. He's starting to actually trust me, whether he knows it or not. But I'm not going to press him to tell me things, and I refuse to invade his privacy—he's different than me. He has to volunteer it—someone who's been tortured like he has won't ever offer information to targeted questioning.

"_Don't fire Max, let him keep his job_, " he assks. It's the first time he's ever asked me for anything—and he's doing it as he watches his boy, the most important thing in his life, rather than looking at me. It's alright—children should always come first.

I'm angry, still, at the way my father just waltzed in here and almost compromised all the things that I've worked for, without affording our victims the forensic integrity that they deserve. If he's going to stay, he's going to learn to do things on my terms—so I say so, in a roundabout way.

"_Maybe you can overlook it for me_." He's serious. Finally. And it looks like it hurts him physically to ask—like the question's been exacted under torture. Poor Booth. It's so hard for him to let go, but he has to, for the same reasons he tries to make me let go. It goes both ways, even if he doesn't think it possibly can.

"_For you_?" I have to be sure. He has this _look_ he always gets when he's trying to get me to do something he thinks is going to be good for me—like he knows something and feels sorry for me that I don't know it yet. Of course I know it—I just don't want to admit it. I have to be sure that this isn't that.

"_Yeah_," he says, not looking at me as he thinks it over. "_Personal favor_."

It's true, he actually means it—though of course I heard my father talking to him about losing his job and Booth promising to talk to me about it. I was torn between my heart in my throat at his "_Bones is beautiful_," and my nausea at my father's incredible gall to interfere in my partnership with Booth. How dare he even think that he has any right to approve anything that I do, and then to tell Booth, not even obliquely, that he should make a move on me? How dare he assume Booth needs anyone's approval but mine? I don't need him pushing Booth when he's still figuring out how far to go.

"_What, like a partner thing_?"

I try to keep my face innocent. You get used to keeping your real thoughts and feelings to yourself in three short years of foster care. If you let people know what you really think, they'll take advantage of it. Not that Booth would, precisely, but if he's not going to trust me, then I can't let him all the way in.

"_Partner thing_." He hesitated, there, just that split second. He isn't asking because we're partners.

I can't help it—I find myself smiling in disbelief that he's finally asking me to do something for him. I don't want him to change his mind, or take it back—I need him to commit to this.

"_I know you Booth_." That much is true.

"_You're trying to do me a favor, by telling me it's a favor for you_." That's been true—just not right now.

And then he confirms my suspicion, a real honest answer, not hiding what he's actually feeling. "_No. Nnn-nnh. No, I can't afford that school. I can't enrich Parker. Not with the science thing, but…_"

I can tell he means it, because he keeps looking away from me. He never can look at me for long when he's admitting something he thinks I'm going to think badly of him for. How wrong he is. How could I think he's weak for wanting the best for his little boy? Or that he's somehow deficient just because his intelligence is the instinctive rather than the intellectual type? Intellectual intelligence can only be gained if there's a firm foundation to build upon, and Booth has passed that on to his son. That boy isn't afraid to ask any questions about anything. Booth did that. How could he possibly think he's not a good parent?

He inhales, flicking me a glance before he looks away again—he's inhaling like he's diving into deep, cold, unknown waters.

"… _but you can, Max can_." And now he's waiting, like I'm going to say no. How could I? The man just asked me to help him with the thing that's most important to him—he's finally showed me that he trusts me enough to ask and to let me help.

And then the bottle explodes, and his "_who-ah_!" is as open and excited as Parker's before his expression shifts and Parker proudly exclaims that "_I blew it up_!" Parker's proud of himself, but Booth's prouder still of his boy. He can't hide anything in that stone face of his when it comes to his son.

Two tousled blonde heads of hair, old and young, grin up at us, having fun while we watch over them both. I'm not as proud of my Dad as I could be. But he's trying.

"_Look at my dad_." My dad that Booth got back for me.

"_Look at my little boy there with your dad_." He trusts my dad with his son. He trusts _me_ with his son.

"_Okay_." It's still hard to believe he actually asked me something.

"_Alright_." It just may be, finally, alright and maybe something more, soon.

"_Yes_." Yes, maybe it's possible now.

"_Thanks, Bones_."

I shake my head at him even as I smile back at his genuine, open, appreciative smile—he just unpacked his bags a little, or at least set them down on the floor, if he's asking me to do him the favor of being there to help him with his son. Perhaps he's starting to appreciate what he's got—someone he can trust, if he'll just let me. He shouldn't be thanking me. He's the one who's just done me a favor, by letting me in.


	30. Forensic Artist

"Coke is so early 90s," she said, not bothering to hide her disdain as the gallery owner offered her a line for the third time in an hour. He just wanted her so blown out of her mind that he could get in her pants. He hadn't dared make it a condition of his showing her work; she was getting lots of buzz, and his business was slow lately.

Well, she was tired of it. She picked up her things and stood in the door-- no one she really wanted to say goodnight to, no one she would really call friend. She let the door slam behind her, and didn't look back.

"Taxi!" she yelled, as the cold winter wind whipped her long brown hair in her almond-shaped eyes.

* * *

Home was a relief. Sort of. She sighed as she locked and bolted her door, the action instinctive after five years in the city. Yeah, the art scene was the best in the country, but in the end, so many players were vapid, or it all came down to money. She just wanted to paint-- to hell with sucking up to curators and owners and buyers. And she didn't even want to paint anymore all the time anyway, she thought, sighing.

She dumped her things on the floor as she entered her studio/apartment, and regarded her new obsession-- the flashing blue lights of her new hardwired friends. Mabe the program she wrote would have taken while she was out.

"I hate the scene and now I'm a geek on top of everything else," she muttered as she sat down, then moved the mouse to clear the sleeping screen of her laptop. A smile nonetheless burst from her as she saw that the code she wrote took.

"Just a wee little free downloadable app," she sang to the computer, then started the process to upload it to the digital photographers' community website she taken to haunting.

She wasn't a photographer, not in an artistic way. But she'd been enthralled by the possibilities in manipulating digital images, and all the new cameras fascinated her. When her photographer friend Ben called her in desparate need of help the weekend before his photos were due for framing before a new show, his computer in metaphorical smoking ruins from a hard drive crash, she'd of course let him come over.

To that point, her laptop was for email and contracts and letters, but as Ben loaded his photo manipulation software, then uploaded the files from his zip drive, she was drawn in despite herself. By the time he was done, she was dumbstruck by all the new ways to change color and light, to make whole new images from ones that on film would be mostly static. That was a year ago, and now she had a whole sideline, tweaking digital photos for artists who knew what they wanted but were dunces, technically, outside their camera's settings. Her painter friends mocked her for doing it, and she'd long since stopped discussing her latest accomplishments or the success of her photographers' friends' work, though it had become almost as creative a fuel as her painting. Certainly there were almost as many hard grey boxes with blinking blue lights scattered through the studio as there were half-painted canvases.

She was tired of this. She wanted to do what _she_ wanted someplace where she'd be respected, whatever medium she chose to work in. She wanted to be someplace where no one questioned her monetary motivations or her 'dedication to art'-- as if paint, pen and ink were the only valid means of visual expression.

She smiled again as her "wee little app" finished uploading, and patted the mouse like a pet. Not ten minutes later, she already had an email from a photographer friend, enthusing over the app's possibilities. That decided her. Sort of.

It was late, she knew, but if she didn't call now, she might lose her courage. Heart pounding, hand shaking, she picked up the phone and dialed as she stood on the brink of a giant leap forward. "Please pick up, please pick up," she begged the receiver, as the phone rang on the other end.

"Hello?" came the sleepy, groggy voice at the end of the line. Boy, was it ever the end of the line.

The words spilled out in a rush. "Bren? If that geek artist job you offered to make up for me is still open, I'll take it."

Her friend, a real friend, her best friend, sounded groggy but pleased as she answered. "Oh, Ange, that's great. When do you want to start?"

Ange looked around at the canvas, the blue blinking lights, the bed that was empty but for herself this last month or more.

"I'll be on the 4 o'clock train from Penn Station tomorrow, I should be in town by eight-thirty or so. You can take me for a late supper, and Monday we'll go to the lab and you can show me my office while I make you a list of all the expensive computers you're going to buy me. And then we can come back next weekend on the train and pack up all my stuff."

Brennan laughed on the other end of the line. "As long as you don't make me go dancing until after we get you all settled."

"Glug-glug-wahoo, Bren," Angela laughed in response. "Yeah, we'll celebrate, that's for sure. This is going to be fun. What's my new job title again?"

"Forensic artist," Brennan replied.

"Forensic artist," Angela murmured. "Geeky _and_ artistic. I like it. I'll see you tomorrow, sweetie."

"Good night, Ange. See you then."

Angela put down the phone, and patted her laptop, then looked around for her carrying case. "You and me, little forensic artist's best hardwired friend, you're goign to meet a forensic artist's best softwired friend tomorrow. We're going to have fun, little guy. Forensic artist. I like that."

The laptop chimed a happy sound as she shut it down and put it away in its case by the door.

"Forensic artist," she said, one last time. "I like it."


	31. No Nighthawks at the Diner

She should have known. Christmas was something she just wasn't meant to enjoy. If she believed in luck or karma, or was superstitious, she'd wonder was bad imp of luck and happiness she'd annoyed for every Christmas to be a crushing, painful disappointment for the last seventeen years. Last year's had been lovely, prison trailer notwithstanding-- she'd watched Russ and his girls, her father interacting with them and smiling at their innocent ability to ignore their surroundings and just enjoy the company of family and friends. She'd smiled and laughed a bit with her family, then smiled even further when Booth and his son showed up with their car lit Christmas tree. One of the prison guards had come along and hooked up his own car to keep the car lit, not long after she and Booth finished their conversation. She'd waved goodbye to both of them, thanking him all over again, and wondering how he explained to Parker why everyone in the trailer didn't have a tree.

Now, here she was, alone again. She'd turned down all the dig requests she normally got for the holidays. Her father and brother and Amy and her girls were supposed to be coming, staying through Christmas Eve to the next morning. It was going to be a kind of family Christmas, without orange jumpsuits and guards. And she'd so been looking forward to it. She bought a small tree, went shopping for lights and decorations, even got a wreath to hang on her door. She supposed the decorations might look sparse, but any more were so outside her experience since she'd lived on her own that decided to go bigger was too painful.

At least she'd had a chance to spend a little time with the team before they all went off to their own family gatherings. They'd gathered in the lounge at the end of the day, and laughed over the silly gifts they'd all exchanged in a Yankee Swap. She'd actually known what one was, and shopped one whole long weekend trying to find the appropriate gift, one that might appeal to anyone on the team. She seemed to have chosen correctly, as Hodgins opened the box to the children's slime-making-kit, said "I'm done here, anyone tries to take this from me and I'll have Booth shoot you," and held the box possessively until the exchange was over. Brennan smiled at the small wooden jumping jack she'd ended up with, and Angela's comment that "it dances as badly as you do," when she decided to keep it.

She and Booth met at the diner at suppertime the day prior, and shared a burger and fries while Parker oohed and aahed over Brennan's gift to him-- a set of model cars, emergency vehicles, that he and Booth could work on together. Booth's eyes had twinkled when he'd opened his own gift, a year-long "pie of the month club" card from a local bakery renowned for its pies, and a pair of ridiculous socks so madly zig-zagged with stripes that even he couldn't look straight at them. Parker had made her a Rudolf from candycanes with a red gumdrop nose, and now it adorned her coffee table, which had been missing a centerpiece. She'd almost cried at Booth's present to her-- a Foreigner CD, a Cyndi Lauper CD, and a Poco's Greatest Hits, though there was only one song on their that mattered. The box also contained a sage bundle, and she couldn't help but laugh around the lump in her throat. "Purify the listening experience, is that it?" she said, and he smiled with that warm sympathetic look in his eye that made her want to throw herself in his arms every single time. Instead she said thank you, and listened to his plans with his son, and explained her own plans.

She wiped a tear from her eye, then another, and sniffled. Midafternoon today, when she'd actually left the lab early to go home and make preparations, she got a call from her father, saying he wouldn't be able to make it. His car had frozen up, the busses and trains were packed, and there just wasn't time to make other arrangements. Perhaps a half hour later, while she was still sniffling, Russ called, to say Halley's mild cold was worsening, and that while she should be fine and had some new medications gotten just then, they didn't want to risk making her worse by travelling. She'd said bravely that she understood, and said only "That's right" when Russ said, "Well, you and Dad will have a good time."

So she drank soy nog and ate crackers and cheese for dinner, and fell asleep on the couch watching the Christmas lights twinkle, after watching the milk and cookies she'd bought and set out for Santa for the girls' enjoyment go sour and stale. Sour and stale was how she felt right now anyway.

She woke up with a crick in her neck Christmas morning, which hardly improved her mood, but the promised snow had yet to start falling. Though the Christmas decorations were everywhere, she decided a walk outside would be better than staying in, so she showered and put on some clothes, then went for a walk, eventually finding herself at the diner.

She sat at the counter and ordered her usual breakfast, not thinking of much as she watched the waitresses banter with the short order cook, who was wearing a Santa hat. "Weren't you just in?" Ruby asked as she slid Brennan her toasted and buttered whole wheat bagel and coffee.

Brennan smiled as best she could. "My plans fell through." She sipped her coffee, then looked around. For some reason, the Beatles' _Eleanor Rigby_ played through her head, and she thought bitterly that while she didn't know, either, where "all the lonely people" came from, they certainly seemed to be clustered at the diner this morning. Like her. She worked some more on her bagel.

The door chimed behind her, but she didn't bother to look around-- until a voice at her elbow asked incredulously, "Dr. Brennan?"

She turned, and managed a surprised smile. "Dr. Sweets. Hello. What are you doing here? I thought you mentioned you were headed home for the holiday."

He sat next to her and turned slightly red. "Well, I had a fight with my parents-- they're divorced, see-- about who I was staying with and in what order I'd be celebrating Christmas, and it was too stressful to deal with, so I just stayed here. What, uh... what happened to your plans?"

She told him and he grimaced, saying "That's terrible luck, I'm sorry." The waitress came for his order, and the two of them sat there, not saying much, and both watching the other people there.

"It's like _Nighthawks_, the Hopper painting, except in broad daylight, and with Santa hats" Brennan mused, as Sweets dug into his pancakes. He looked around and saw she was right-- he and Brennan were holding down the short end of the counter, like the woman in the red dress and her fedora-wearing companion.

"I always wondered what brought them there, at that time."

"Well, I'm sure _Eleanor Rigby_ was playing in the background," she said bitterly, then mumbled "sorry." She didn't mean to depress the boy, and she hardly wanted him to feel like he had to comfort her. Christmas day was no time to be psychoanalyzed.

"No worries. I was feeling kind of like Father McKenzie might knock on my door this morning, too." She looked sideways, and he wore the same twisted smile she did.

They each finished breakfast, talking desultorily, and laughing lightly at the waitress' and short order cooks banter. The door chimed behind them, and Brennan was only mildly surprised to hear "Bones? Sweets?"

Booth took the stool next to Brennan. "What happened to your plans?"

They each explained, and then Booth offered bitterly, "Becs got a last minute cheap plane ticket to go see her parents and took Parker with him. But now we can all go back to Bones' place and spike her soy nog with scotch." He smiled himself at this suggestion, and the other two laughed.

"Sounds like a plan," Brennan said, and Sweets said "Really?"

Brennan looked him in the eye, then said quietly, "Absolutely."

Like a sad Christmas story that slowly wound up to a happy ending, each of the rest of the team dragged in over the next half hour with their own tales of family fights and travel plans gone awry, and they moved to the window, pushing two tables together so they could all sit and order more breakfast and pie. The next thing they knew, Ruby made her way over with a tray of champagne flutes. "Merry Christmas, you guys," she said, passing the flutes around with a pitcher of OJ and a bottle of champagne. "Lou keeps some around in the fridge, you guys look like you need it."

Everyone smiled and thanked her, then clinked glasses, and set to their breakfasts in surprisingly good moods. They were soon caught up in laughing conversation that it took Sweet's second statement of "Look" for them to peer out the window.

"Snow. Lots of it."

At some point after Cam dragged in an hour and a half ago, several inches of snow had fallen. It was still falling, slow fat flakes of the type that could go on for days. Everyone exclaimed, and Brennan, looking around, had a thought.

"I have a honey baked ham, some macaroni and cheese, a pumpkin pie and a green bean casserole at home that I'm not going to use. If we go now, we could pick up some wine, put things in the oven and then..." she trailed off, shy, and Booth caught her eye.

"Bones has a park down the street big enough for the first annual FBI squint snowball fight."

Chairs were knocked over and coffee mugs spilt as they all stood and gathered their coats. Twenties were thrown down with such holiday cheer that Ruby made a 200% tip on the table. And meeting out on the sidewalk, the team started kicking snow at each other and grabbing snow for snowballs, as they all started running back toward Brennan's apartment.

Ruby smiled over at Lou. "No Nighthawks in our diner, right Lou?"

"Not on Christmas. No Eleanor Rigbys either."

"You were lucky they were all home when you called them," Ruby said.

"They were all lucky in that bad luck turned good kind of way they were all home," Lou said. "That long face on her when she came in... I figured bad luck must be catching, and I was right. Thank God they all order takeout so I had their numbers."

"Why'd you do it, Lou?" Ruby asked. "The doctor's nice and all, but she's not exactly the chatty type."

Lou smiled and looked around. It was slowing down now, and he had time. He leant his arms on the stainless steel of the window, and said, "Well, I've got this niece, Carol. Great kid. Nice husband, too. They live in the back of beyond down in West Virginia, and last year a friend of theirs had an accident. From what I heard, this is what happened..."

And then he proceeded to tell Ruby his own version of a child from meek circumstances being brought to a family who loved him with the help of one wise woman.


	32. Observation of Societal Rituals

She returned upstairs from Bone Storage, having put the latest Jane Doe away with little feeling of accomplishment, and looked around the lab, unlit except for her office. Merry Christmas, Temperance, she thought to herself.

Wasn't observation of societal rituals supposed to engender a feeling of community and a reciprocal inclusion in further rituals? She'd managed to observe the workplace and friendship rituals despite herself, and to the apparently pleased surprise of the others. She even found a suitable gift that several people bartered over for something called a "Yankee Swap" that she did rather enjoy, since the idea of barter was delightfully reversed, to much humor and attempts on the part of persons who wanted the gifts to trick others into giving them over. Booth and Sweets had even participated, and though she wasn't quite sure was a light saber was, it was quite comical to see Hodgins and Sweets both competing over obtaining the gift at the last. She'd even consumed eggnog, though she'd sipped it slowly once she realized that Hodgins had again slipped pure distilled alcohol into the beverage. It was amusing to see Cam fail to comprehend the beverage's potency only after she had to be carried down the stairs by Hodgins. By the look in his eye, it seemed that perhaps he was making new plans for tonight's Christmas Eve celebrations-- she knew Cam was planning on staying in town after overhearing a conversation with Booth, and she'd heard her also bemoan that she was "single again." But she'd also mentioned dinner at a friend's house, and their new baby to admire.

Angela and Roxie were going skiing, and she'd left straight from the lab-- skiing was one sport Brennan had never particularly enjoyed. Not that she'd been invited, or that she would have intruded. And Booth? Well, his mother and favorite aunt were coming to visit and stay with he and Parker at his place. He'd finally gotten his son all to himself for Christmas, and was so incredibly excited-- she was happy for him. She hadn't known his parents recently divorced, but given the little that Booth had told her about his childhood, she gathered that the divorce was long overdue, and that his mother would welcome the company. Very much so. Booth had been busy with a case in his unit that didn't require the lab's assistance right up until the Yankee Swap, and then had to rush off afterward to get home and prepare-- he'd given her a guy hug and hurriedly wished her a merry Christmas before setting off for home. She thought about the present she'd bought for he and Parker, and sighed. She wouldn't interrupt the first Christmas he'd had uninterrupted with his mother and son in ages--she could give it to him afterward.

Her own family? Well, she turned down any foreign digs this year, assuming that she would be spending it with them-- only to find out when she called Russ to formalize plans for Christmas dinner two days ago that they'd assumed she would be going away as she usually did, and had already planned along with her father to travel to Disneyland, the most crass, commercial place in the world to Brennan's mind. Of course, the fact that they were supposed to go two weeks after her parents disappeared of course had nothing to do with her opinion of the place, much less the stab through the heart that she felt when everyone in her family but her finally went-- and they didn't even ask her, didn't even suggest that she should think of it as an option. She hated psychology, all it did was make you feel worse when you realized what was bothering you. Russ' response when she told him she'd cancelled her travel plans? "Well, you should have told us you weren't going away, Tempe. I'm sure if you call the airlines or the hotel you could find something and join us." She thought bitterly of the several messages she'd left on their machine in the past few weeks requesting a return call-- none of them were, as was often the case with Russ. It wasn't like she hadn't tried. She didn't even bother calling her father after that completely back-handed invitation. Convenient, to have finagled himself a job at her lab, then disappeared with the rest of her "family" at Christmas.

So here she was at nine-thirty at night on Christmas Eve, standing in the entry way to Zack's laboratory-- the one that was still unoccupied for the lack of another forensic anthropologist to replace him. She'd offered Clark the job, several times, and he'd told her that while he enjoyed working with her, he found the environment disruptive otherwise. Brennan hadn't the heart to tell him that but for the team's antics, it might be days or weeks before she'd smile or laugh. And she could admit, if just to herself, that she needed it. Not that it was doing her any good right now, she thought, as she angrily swiped tears from her face.

This room bothered her. Fine, haunted her. Zach probably made those dentures for that animal here, or extracted the canines for it all under her nose. And no matter what Booth told her, she'd let it happen. The lab was her home, and she'd let someone make a pipe bomb in her basement, essentially. And yet, even Zack's family was coming to town to visit him. A traitor, however misguided, had better plans for Christmas than she did.

And now, she was here, willing to engage in those community social rituals. But insufficiently, apparently. It wasn't enough that she'd avoided decrying them in the buildup, and had in fact participated in others' conversations about their upcoming plans. But she wasn't, hadn't ever been the kind to say "I'm now participating in Christmas!" She just did things-- she'd always felt that actions spoke for themselves. Apparently not. Everyone accused her of running away to avoid her problems, and yet here she'd stayed, explicitly planning on working around them-- only to find herself doing it alone. She went back to her office, blew her nose, gathered her things, then proceeded to leave.

"Goodnight, Larry," she said, dropping off the small box she'd wrapped for the night watchman. It wasn't particularly personal, but she hoped he would find the gift useful. He looked surprised at the brightly tied box, then grateful as she said "I'm the last one out, I've locked the lab doors, so there shouldn't be a need to go back in. I'm sure if you watch the cameras from here, everything will be fine."

Larry was tall, and had the characteristic visage of someone of Mohawk heritage, and seemed in excellent shape-- but she could tell from his carriage that he'd suffered multiple leg and back fractures from what she expected was a traditional Mohawk career in this modern age-- construction ironwork and steel erection-- and it pained him on cold days like today to cover the long distances between all the parts of the museum and research complex. At least she could save him this part of the trip.

"Not driving tonight, Dr. Brennan?" he asked, as she headed for the front door rather than for the garage.

She shook her head. "No. With the sleet earlier, I decided the train was a less dangerous option. Have a good Christmas."

"Thank you, you too," he said. "Dinner with your father and family?" He'd seen them on occasion at the lab, she supposed.

She shook her head, looking off slightly to the side of his face as the fresh reminder made tears prick at her eyes again. "No. They have other plans. Goodnight." She tried to stifle a sniffle as she headed out the door, and raised a hand in a small wave of acknowledgment without looking back when he said goodnight in response.

She practiced observing the psychological ritual of pasting a small smile on her face on the train ride home, on the theory that a sobbing woman on the train would upset the children accompanying their parents. She then continued the same ritual when she dropped off another small box with her own building's night watchman, Walter, and bid him goodnight. She'd given him the same thing as Larry, assuming they might appreciate the same gift-- though in fact she'd often made the same gift through the lab or the condo complex. This year, however, in the concentration of observing rituals that made her feel awkward, she'd missed the deadline for providing her own gifts, thus requiring her to make a personal delivery of same. It embarrassed her, but she didn't want them to do without the acknowledgment of the imposition that odd hours could be.

"Dinner with your father and family tomorrow?" Walter asked. She gave him the same answer as she gave Larry, again without looking him right in the face, and made it all the way to the elevator before she started crying. She thought that first choked sob wasn't audible just as the doors closed. She made it inside the apartment door despite her tears, locked up with Booth's nagging voice in her ear, and then cried all over again at the imagined sound of his voice as she sank onto her sofa and regarded the small tree she'd purchased and decorated in a willingness to observe the social ritual. She left it unlit. There were no feelings of community to engender. There was no community of one.

---

"Bones?" she heard a soft voice calling, and swum to alertness only slowly. She was curled on her sofa, she gathered-- she must have fallen asleep. Crying always made her exhausted.

"Bones?" she heard again, and recognized the voice as Booth's. Except it couldn't be, because he was spending Christmas with his family. She kept her eyes closed-- her overtired brain was making things up.

"Hey, Bones, come on, I know you're awake," he said again, a hand stroking her shoulder. "Your forehead's doing that furrowy thing it always does when you're trying to ignore something you don't want to think about."

Reluctantly, she cracked an eye open. He was squatting right next to her face, a sad look on his own.

A look over his shoulder showed that the clock on the DVD player read 2 a.m.

"Booth..." she said, confused. "It's two in the morning."

"Yeah, I know," he said.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"Because you told your night watchmen that your jackass father and brother made other plans without you, and I just got their messages when I got home from Midnight Mass with Mom and Betty and Parker. Why didn't you tell me?"

She couldn't really talk around the lump in her throat, so she just shook her head.

"Bones," he said softly. "I didn't even ask you what you were doing-- I just assumed that Russ and Max knew better by now. I'm sorry-- I should have asked."

She shook her head again, swallowed the lump, and said "It's okay. You had other things on your mind."

He shook his head at her, then stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. "No, I should have asked. Just like I should have called you after I got shot. I shouldn't have assumed you were all set, Bones, I'm sorry."

She struggled up to sitting, then looked at him tiredly. She didn't have the energy for this. "Booth-- it's logical for you to assume that unless someone expressly tells you no when you make a request, they will comply with your wishes. I've realized that, and I shouldn't have punched you-- I'm sorry for that. And it's also logical for you to assume based on the fact that I didn't travel this year that I had some plans with my family. There is no reason for you to apologize. You can't act on information not in your possession, or which hasn't been presented so others are aware of it. If the information's withheld, you would be reasonable in not changing your mode of behavior, because there is no incentive to learn alternate means of responding to a situation. The situation thus remains stable, given the old state of information."

She pushed up then to standing and walked over to her refrigerator to get a glass of water, wishing he'd go. Christmas was just a culmination of social and psychological rituals she'd tried to engage in this year, such as complimenting her partner on his parenting skills and intelligence and attempting to be of more assistance to him with his own emotional life. But clearly she'd failed, and the unlit tree and her still-best-friend partner were reminders of that. When she turned back to look at him, though, he was looking at her like she was a puzzle and he'd just found the last piece after overlooking it multiple times.

"Bones," he said quietly, approaching her until he was standing right in front of her. "There's a flaw in your logic." She shuddered as he repeated the words she'd used on Zach months ago, and he pulled her into a hug. His warm voice in her ear and his arms around her, he said, "Learning's a two way street, Bones. Without someone paying attention or asking questions, all the information in the world can be as plain as day and no one will learn about it. That's not a flaw in the information-- it's a problem with people having a lack of curiosity, or being too distracted to look at what's right in front of them. I'm sorry I was distracted."

He pulled back to look at her, then placed his hands on either side of her face and kissed her-- at first softly and sweetly, and then more deeply when she wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him back, as she'd wanted to for a while, hoping he'd read her small clues. When he broke the kiss, reluctantly, he said with a smile meant to charm her into instantly agreeing, "I told Mom and Betty we'd be back within the hour, so grab your stuff and let's go."

"Bossy," she said with a slight smile, instantly agreeing. She called over her shoulder, saying "that long box on the coffee table is the gift for you and Parker."

She gathered some things and put them in a small overnight bag, and came out to find him looking at the tickets in the now-unwrapped box in front of him. "Bones," he said, eyes glittering. "These are open ended, these things cost a mint."

"So?" she asked. "Given Rebecca's penchant for taking Parker off on trips at the last minute and the frequency with which people are murdered inconveniently when you have vacation plans, I thought they were logical. And you should get to go to Hawaii. You would have gone if it wasn't for your helping your brother."

He shook his head. "You're too much, Bones. And that's a good thing." He pulled her in for another long kiss, said "I'm sorry," and then said with a grin, "But you're going to let me make it up to you, right?"

She smiled, feeling shy for the first time around him, and said "Sure. But not until your family's gone home."

He laughed, kissed her until her knees wobbled, and steered her out the door, down the elevator, and out to his car, with a small wink of thanks to Walter.

Walter smiled to himself as he watched the two leave. Night watchmen are expected to ask questions, and alert the appropriate people to potential situations. He called Larry over at the Jeffersonian to let him know that this particular situation was resolved for the night—they often exchanged calls after that kidnapping she'd had with Larry calling to let him know she was leaving, and Walter calling to let Larry know she'd arrived and that things seemed fine.

"Larry, they just left," he said.

"She look happy, Walt?"

"She did. Had an overnight bag, too."

He heard an answering chuckle. "Glad to hear it."

"Thanks for calling, Larry."

"Just fulfilling my role in the larger community," he said, "as Dr. Brennan might say."

Walt chuckled. "Yeah, you've got her down to a T. Merry Christmas."

"You too."


	33. Three Kings

**_Another Christmas fic, this time without B/B. I wondered what some of the other characters were doing, and thought of some conversations celtic33 and I have had. This one's for you, dude. : ) _**

* * *

"Gold," said the first king, placing a large yellow block of Wisconsin Cheddar and a butter knife down on the table.

"Frankincense," said the next king, opening a box of herb-scented crackers.

"Myrhh," said the third, opening a jar of thick apple butter and a small spoon.

They served out the small feast on the paper plates and took up the paper napkins, then waited as the first king poured out drinks in their plastic cups.

"Apple cider," he said with a twist at his mouth. "It was all I could get."

They raised their cups as Zach said to the others, "King of the Loony Bin."

Hodgins' smiled twisted as he raised his own cup and said "King of the Lab."

Sweets' smile as he said "King of the Hoover" said the same thing as the other two kings'-- none of them felt particularly regal, or like the master of anything. "To the three kings of Christmas," he finished, and they all tapped their cups, then drank, pained smiles on each of their faces.

But it was better than being alone. They each had secrets, each had things they couldn't say to the other, and might never be able to. But being together was less lonely and heartbreaking than being apart, and each felt they had some role in the others' loneliness. So without talking much about it, except for Sweets making arrangements for this conference room at the hospital, they decided to spend the holiday together.

Sweets got up and put the video in the conference room television, as Hodgins got up and turned off the lights-- then the three kings settled further into their chairs.

As the movie began, they all intoned the first words together. " A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... Episode IV. A New Hope. It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base..."

Zack's voice trailed off as he watched the other two. Even with everything that had happened, those words he'd seen Agent Booth tell Dr. Brennan on the day he started as a full time employee at the lab were true. There was more than one kind of family.

"To the three geeks of Christmas," he said softly. The other two heard him, and guffawed, the painful irony of the whole situation broken.

"Zach-o," said Jack, smiling. "Hand me some more of that frankincense and gold, will ya?"

As the action came up, smiles burst as the first robots appeared on the screen, and the banter began.

"R2-D2, he's my man, all the way."

"Come on, dude, you've got to give it up for Threepio..."

"Logically, Threepio should be capable of extricating the characters from ...."


	34. Second Opinion

_**So-- there's this moment in Season 4's The Man in the Outhouse where Sweets is going on about Booth not having advanced training in psychology while Booth's eating cereal or something, and Booth just shoots him this look that says Sweets is a total idiot. The way Booth sarcastically mumbled, "Yeah, serious impulse control issues," to something they're watching on screen gave me pause to wonder, given everything we don't know about him. Here's a riff on what could have prompted that look Booth gave to Sweets.**_

* * *

Second opinion

I waited until after the end of the normal work day, knowing his floor would be mostly deserted but that he would still be here—he tended to keep long hours. I knocked on the frame of his doorway, and he looked up. "Hey, Sweets, what's up?" he asked, giving me that bland expression, almost mildly amused, that he so often wears.

I came in, the purpose of my errand under my arm, and handed it to him across his desk before I sat down and looked at him. He opened the black-bound thesis, about two inches thick, looked at the cover page, and snorted, a small smile at the edge of his mouth. A bitter small smile.

"So?" he said, pushing it away from him, and looking at me with that bland expression. Poker face-- hiding his thoughts. It always bugged me, even as I admitted that it made him better at his job than almost anyone else here. But I'm supposed to know what he's thinking, and 95% of the time? No idea.

"Why, with that," I asked, motioning at the volume I'd handed him, "do you bother putting up with me?"

He quirked an eyebrow, and sat back a bit. He wasn't relaxed, but he wasn't tense, either. I don't know. I'd say if he was a cat, he was waiting to spring or something. Weird. His body language is harder to read than other people's a lot of the time.

"I'm a cop, Sweets, not a squint. Anyone who wants to get anywhere as a cop needs a Master's degree."

He was serious, but still—and shame on me for never looking into it, since I'd always been more interested in his Army background that I could never get the full story or file on instead of his education. I made the stupid assumption that he'd gone the English or History or Criminal Justice route. "I still don't understand. You have a degree in Abnormal and Clinical Psychology from a very, very reputable program. Why on earth do you put up with the Bureau assigning you to therapy? And you hardly require profiling help, if that's any marker." I waved again at the volume he'd set aside.

He looked at me then, a tired expression passing over his face. "I have seven desk jockeys, ten field agents, and five secretaries to chase around this department, Sweets. See this?" he said, pointing to a stack of papers almost a foot high. "Policy and administrative crap. You know when I do that work? In front of SportsCenter, or after I put my kid to bed on the weekends I have him."

He pointed to another stack, almost as high. "See this? Backlogged smaller cases I need to figure out who to assign to, and then nag the crap out of them every other day to find out how they're doing, and then sign off on it before it goes up to Caroline or one of her lackeys. I go through more than 1000 minutes a month on my cell, and that new truck I got this fall? I've already put 50,000 miles on it, chasing my newbies all over the place plus my cases. Motor pool's pissed."

He then pointed to a half dozen banker's boxes on the floor. "That? That's the axe murderer case Bones and I finished up four months ago. Going to trial next week. I've got to find time to re-read all that stuff, although at least I've got Bones to ride herd on me about that and quiz me at midnight, when we both actually get done with the other stuff we have to work on. I hate getting ready for trial on the other ones—Caroline pounds the shit out of me in trial prep." At the mention of Dr. Brennan, a less ironic, less bitter smile quirked the edge of his mouth, and he looked up at me.

"As much as I bitch about paperwork, and as much as I've got a rep as a hardass when I'm trying to whip my newbies and jockeys into shape, and as much as I tease Bones and the squints about all their incomprehensible terminology, I love my job. It's straightforward. It keeps me busy. There are concrete results, most of the time. I'm good at my job, and good at training my agents. They get hurt less, fire fewer bullets, close more cases than anyone else's unit in this whole damned building. But I don't have time, all the time, to pay attention to every single nuance on every single case. It's nice to have a second opinion on these scumbags sometimes. Nobody's perfect, Sweets, except Bones when it comes to those bones of hers."

It was a good little speech—off the cuff, true, both appropriately proud of and modest about his accomplishments, and for all that, succinct. But that was hardly all of it—and while it was a reasonable explanation, and flattering insofar as it went to my profiling abilities, it didn't explain _him_. For the millionth time since I started working with him, I felt like I'd hit a brick wall. The man had no problem with my profiling work, and every once in a while a little chink in his armor around his son would open up, but beyond that? I very often had no idea. And as often as I thought I'd gotten a handle on Dr. Brennan, and what made the two of them tick as a result, something would happen while the two of them were out of the office, and their dynamic would twist again, leaving me to start practically all over again.

"So… every time I make you guys do trust exercises…" I said, trailing off. I felt like an idiot even asking him.

He snorted. "Yes, Sweets, I am secretly judging you. But you knew that already, right? You just figured it was something else. And maybe it is. But don't tell me you don't go to therapy, either, because we both know that's bullshit."

He was right, of course I had my own shrink. As he smirked at me, I realized—he hadn't been playing me, exactly. But I'd made so little progress with him for a reason—he already knew where I was going with things, and just sidestepped them when he found them inconvenient to deal with. He tipped his head a bit then, and actually answered my question.

"If you read that," he said, pointing at that thesis of his, "then you know that your type of abnormal and clinical psych is not anything I ever spent much time on. Yeah, the murderer and serial killer stuff more than the rest, but I mostly took the classes because I had to—repairing interpersonal relationships was not my area of interest." His mouth turned again into a bitter moue.

"Anyway," he said, sitting back a bit in his chair and putting his feet up, "I didn't have the patience to go after the doctorate, I hate academic writing. The research is one thing. Writing that shit up was painful in more ways than one," he said, giving the volume what might almost be considered a glare.

"But…" I said, thinking about how I would frame the next part of the question. "That," I said, motioning to the same volume of work, "_that_ is constantly referred to in the literature for the diagnostic criteria and questionnaires distributed to patients, and some of the suggested methodologies in there have become a standard part of the treatment regimen. I don't understand why…"

He cut me off, becoming impatient. "Like I said. I like my job—I catch people who have done bad things for no socially acceptable reason. I have no interest in academia, and you've got to remember, I was working with clinical practitioners. Any of treatment recommendations got highly vetted, and not by me. This job is clean. That? Actions taken under the claim of wartime exigency are far murkier, truly morally ambiguous, incredibly difficult things to pick apart and resolve, Sweets. Complicated doesn't begin to explain it."

He looked at me like I couldn't possibly understand, and I suppose I couldn't. It wasn't an area I was particularly interested in before now—it was so specialized, with such a comparatively small populations.

"Does Dr. Brennan know about this? It's very well-written."

He snorted, making no other acknowledgment of what I'd intended to be a compliment. "Yeah. She looked it up when I wouldn't tell her what I did in school between my regular and reserve deployments."

"What did she have to say about it?" I was curious—she has a vehemently expressed distaste for psychology, so I wondered what she would think to know that her partner wrote his master's thesis in that same area.

The somewhat open expression he'd been wearing shifted immediately. "Oh, that's got nothing to do with work, Sweets," he said blandly.

I tried another tactic. "She wasn't curious about what drew you to that research?"

He looked at me like I was an idiot, now. "Bones is curious about everything. But she also is capable of forming her own conclusions from research without feeling the need to question every single aspect of the paper. But yeah, Bones knows." Ouch. That smarted. So basically, his partner read it, understood it, and they discussed it minimally, probably saying less than three words each and just exchanging one of those _looks_ of theirs that they understood. Unlike me, who was still sitting here asking questions.

And then I put my foot right in it. "I don't understand why you chose that particular sub-population to study, however. I mean, the principles are applicable to other, wider sub-populations within the same group, but it must have been disappointing to not be able to set up a control group."

His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, and that feeling that he was ready to… spring… intensified. He merely stared me into my chair so that I could no sooner get up than if he tied me there, however. His voice took on an even, emotionless tone.

"Those are case studies for a very specific reason. You _don't_ _ever_ experiment with people like that, not after what they've been through—that's as much experiment as they should ever have to go through, without some jerkoff in a lab coat at home playing with what makes them tick. The goal of the study and the recommendations was a return to functionality, Sweets, not to observe and dissect departures from some nonexistent baseline. I thought you said you read it."

Just then, his phone buzzed in his pocket, and looking at the ID on the display, he sent me another quelling glare that kept me in place.

"Hey, Bones, what's up?" He listened for a moment, then flicked his eyes over at the series of boxes he'd pointed out earlier.

"Yeah. I was just shutting down my computer," he said in reply to some inquiry from her, then proceeded to do so.

"Which ones?" he then asked, and got out of his seat to squat in front of the boxes and rummage through them. He pulled out three folders, flipping through them, then opened another box.

"You want any of the actual bagged evidence?" he asked, looking into a box that did seem to bear a number of plastic-wrapped items.

He listened to something more she said, then stood and stuffed the folders into a briefcase sitting on one of the chairs before walking back around to his side of the desk and plopping it on top. He continued to stuff other items from various piles into the bag until it was close to overflowing, then tossed in a few pens for good measure and a stack of his omnipresent index cards.

"Yeah. Sounds good, add an extra order of spring rolls and an extra spicy pad kee mao with shrimp, will you? Those bastards only left me two sandwiches, two cookies and three bags of chips at the departments meeting today," he groused, and I could hear her laugh on the other end of the line. Agent Booth's appetite was legend at the Bureau—the man could and would eat practically anything.

He smiled at something she said then, the most open expression I'd ever seen on his face, and said, "Nah. I'll pick some beer up. I suppose you want Gewurztra-whatever too, right? Yeah, yeah, the Finger Lakes stuff with the horse on the bottle. Got it."

He snorted at something else she said, then spoke again. "Yeah. Look, someone's in my office, let me finish up here. See you in twenty."

He flipped the phone shut, stuffed it back in his pocket, and slipped his suit jacket back on, turning off his desk lamp as he went. He shouldered the bag, then looked at something on the bookshelf to the side of his desk before shooting me a closed look. He pulled a small volume off the shelf, picked up the thesis, and handed them both to me.

"You want to understand this, Sweets? First—there's no such thing in Rangers Special Forces as just having one specialty. So yeah, I was a sniper, but patient-therapist confidentiality, Sweets, go look up _Verbum Vincet_. And second—the why part? Well, look up Luke, chapter 4, verse 23, while you're at it. Functionality, Sweets, it's all about functionality."

He gave me a not-gentle slap on the shoulder, said, "Gotta go, got Thai food to eat and an axe murderer to convict. Talk to you later," then strode off toward the elevator, whistling some 80s tune I wasn't quite able to place.

I took the things and headed back up to my office—my computer was still on, I could look up that Latin phrase he'd just quoted at me.

Ten minutes later, I felt like I'd been hit in the back of the head with a board. _Verbum Vincet_—the Army's psychological operations unit, a Special Forces subdivision to which other units sent soldiers to learn—typical intelligence things, but who were also responsible for 'extracting' information from enemy combatants. And the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4, verse 23, "Physician, heal thyself."

I looked at the title page again, and a shudder ran down my spine.

"Player and Played: A Case Study of Special Forces PsyOps Veterans Suffering PTSD After Capture. New Diagnostic Criteria and Treatment Recommendations for Re-Integration."

Despite his impenetrability, I'd formed an opinion of him, one based on faulty, incomplete assumptions. This second opinion was far, far more complicated.


	35. First Name Basis

First Name Basis

He calls me Temperance when he's sleeping-- along with the usual sounds and words and motions a man makes when he dreams about sleeping with a woman. When he's asleep on my couch in my office, or on the couch at my house after we've both had too many beers, or the few times we've had to share a hotel room-- he calls me Temperance, and dreams about making love to me. But he seems unaware of it, because he seems only calm or the usual crankiness of being woken when he sits up and says "Hey, Bones" with sleep still clouding his eyes. I don't know if he remembers the dreams, or if he's sure he doesn't talk in his sleep.

It's always Bones when he's awake-- never Temperance, though there were a few times before we knew what a mess my family was, how criminality runs in my veins, that he called me Temperance, and I could almost believe he would act on that very male interest I can see in his eyes. But he never did anything about it, and then he drew his line-- and he's called me "Bones" ever since, even as that male interest is there, still. I can't blame him-- I'm descended of criminals, and love them despite myself. If I were him, I'd leave calling me Temperance to dreams, too. The reality of sleeping with Temperance and what would come afterward would be a mockery of whatever he's dreaming—I could never live up to it. It's better that he continues to just call me Bones when he's awake-- the way he says Temperance both waking and sleeping is too close, would make me even weaker than I already am-- I'd just disappoint him. If I'm just Bones, then I can't hurt him. And if I'm just Bones, then I can still call him Booth-- and not Seeley, as I've woken up saying far too many times to count.

I try not to fall asleep around him. I don't want him hearing me calling him Seeley—not after what I've been dreaming.


	36. Because They Asked

**_Who know what lurks through Seeley Booth's mind? Does he really believe in the line? Does he think he's damaged goods? Does he think she doesn't want him, or isn't yet ready, even if she is interested? Or is he just chicken? I think Brennan's less complicated-- I think she's lonely, and whether she's aware or not of Booth's actual interest, she's lonely enough that she just takes what she can get, without believing she deserves more. I don't buy into the myth that she'd freak out on Booth if he asked her out-- canon actually seems to indicate she's been in multiple long term relationships. The fact that they didn't work out had nothing to do with her willingness to try in the first place.  
_**

**_

* * *

_**Because they asked

"I don't get it, Ange," I said, shaking my head as I watched Bones mope around the platform from the safety of Angela's office. I'd tried to lighten things up, joke a bit about the last boyfriend, but she just gave me this sad look, sniffled, and stalked off to the bathroom. And I had to wait around so she could get Ange to give me an ID, which meant I had to stay and watch her be miserable.

"Another loser who doesn't deserve her to begin with dumps her and she mopes around like someone ran over her favorite puppy for days. It's like this everytime—stockbroker Scientologist David, that lying manipulator Stires, that cheating scumbag Pete, that axe murderer Will Hastings, Sully who didn't have the sense to see what he had, that gay botanist, that lummox welder, and now this asshole who was too stupid to not try to one up her about her own work at some stupid faculty party. Why does she even go out with them in the first place?"

Angela looked at me with pity and what I think was impatience.

"Honey—she's lonely. That apartment of hers is big and empty. Why do you think she works so late? She still doesn't believe most people really want to spend time with her—she's more aware of her faults than you give her credit for, no matter how often you point them out, which you really should knock off, you know."

She looked at me again, her impatience more keen this time.

"You want to know why she goes out with them? Lets them into her bed? Because they ask, Booth. She's lonely, and they ask—they tell her they want her in a way that has nothing to do with work. And as for deserving? Well, she said once that 'we get what we deserve, Ange. I'll take what I can get, since I don't deserve more.' She doesn't believe anything better's going to come along, and when you're that lonely? It's still company, if not the company you'd prefer."

I looked back out at Bones, and took in all over again how unhappy she seemed. Ange was right—it wasn't just that she'd been dumped—it was that she knew she'd been dumped by an inadequate guy and yet was still so lonely that she still felt bad about it.

When I looked back at Angela, she'd stood and came over, then poked me in the chest hard. "She says yes because they ask. If someone who deserves her asks, she'll say yes. So… ask. Otherwise, you're just going to see it keep happening."

"It's that simple?"

She nodded. "That simple."

I got up and slid my card at the entrance to the platform, then walked right over to her. Fortunately, the rest of the team wasn't that close by.

"Bones?" I said, and she looked up.

"I should be done soon, Booth," she said sadly. "I'm sorry I'm taking so long."

"No… that wasn't it. I just… I'd been meaning to ask you something for a while but…"

She was looking at me curiously, waiting for me to finish stammering like a kid asking someone out on a date for the first time ever.

"Would you like to have dinner with me this weekend? No work, just dinner?"

She tipped her head slightly, the way she does when she's trying to decide what she things about something. With a little smile curving the edge of her mouth, she said "Yes."

That simple. Ange was right. I just had to ask.


	37. I Know Who You Are

**_Warning: References to past sexual abuse._**

**_

* * *

_**It was only the twentieth page of a two-inch thick file that caused you to whirl your chair around in your office and heave into your trash can, the nausea so overwhelming that you kept heaving, everything you'd eaten that day coming up in physical rejection of the things you'd just read. Thank goodness it was late, and there was no one still outside in the bullpen. Though there was ample cause for anyone out there to vomit if they read a file like this, too, you were the boss and it wouldn't do for them to see you react too strongly, too often.

You didn't know why you'd had the file pulled. It was her parents who disappeared—not her. But you were hoping for some clue, something to get rid of that lost little girl look on her face when you told her to go home and she just nodded and did as you asked. Maybe these files would hold something that might tell you—some contact by her parents kept from her by inadequacies within the system? You weren't sure—but you'd asked Charlie to have the files scanned and emailed to you right away, had him ride herd on the agency for a file that started fifteen years ago.

You thought it would be short. "_I was in the system until my grandfather got me out_." She'd lied to you, and no wonder, she didn't know you that well back then. When you got back to the office and saw that two inch stack, the nausea set in. You couldn't bear to read it yet—so you looked at all the other things your desk jockey collected for you instead, that file looming on your desk like a black dog. If you told her that metaphor out loud, she would say "_I don't know what that means_."

She also really, really wouldn't appreciate knowing that you'd had this file pulled, but she'd forgiven you for invading her privacy before when it meant solving a case. If this yielded some clue, you'd tell her. If it didn't, you'd shove it into a desk drawer and pretend like you'd never read it. So you pulled the stack over, and started to read.

The first five pages were an index. She had an index to her damned foster file. The next five pages were the intake form. Clinical, short words. "_Parents disappeared. No leads from police. Older brother abandoned, reportedly looking for work_." A world of pain not touched by those words.

A family assignment, a short blurb about how she seemed to be adjusting that first month. Three pages. Then two more pages of status reports. "_Child more subdued than last visit, but no visible signs of neglect. Likely delayed onset of grief_." And then—the next five pages, a detailed police report, and a long written statement in writing that was less bold, but still the same as the handwriting you'd recognize anywhere.

Four months she'd been with them since her parents disappeared. By her report, three months until _he_ started molesting her. It got worse, never better. Her foster mother didn't believe her. She'd even reported it at her new school. It was only after he'd raped her, raped her, raped her, and she collected herself to run next door to the neighbor's, that someone believed her. You believed her.

You heaved. And heaved again. Kept heaving, tears streaming down your face from the force of it, the last dregs of bile forced from your nose, you were heaving so hard. You groped for the tissues you usually offered victims. Blew your nose. Spat. Grabbed the cold mug of coffee on your desk, rinsed, spat again. There was some gum somewhere in your desk—you didn't have time to get up and brush your teeth—you had to finish the file.

But not yet. First. Check. Where was he? Was he dead? Or was he still alive, and if so, where did he live? You would go back to the file in a minute, see if "justice" was done, though it never was. Jail wasn't any way to make up for things like that when they happened. You would find him, when this immediate crisis was over. But he was dead, in a car accident. No jail.

No jail. You went back to the file.

It was the usual horror story. An attractive young girl. A foster mother and teachers with collective amnesia. The bastard, the scumbag, the so evil there were no words to describe him man was an upstanding member of the community. There were forced signs of entry, yes, but they didn't believe her account of the buildup. Rather, the file read "_accused and wife report misplaced and provocative attention-seeking behavior, likely delayed reaction to circumstances leading to initial placement in system_."

Blame the victim.

"_They treat you like garbage_." She knew, when she told that little boy back in that room months ago. She'd been treated like garbage.

The rest wasn't so horrifying, in comparison, but it was enough to give anyone nightmares for years. The third family, a police report of cigar burns, deep, in her right hip and ribcage, a report of "_attempted molestation_." A new placement. No jail. You stopped long enough to make another check, and he was dead too, though at least he'd gone down in a violent bar fight.

Over and over, the status reports could be summarized in a few short sentences. "_Child still withdrawn, making no attempt to integrate. Sullen. Refuses to interact with placement families beyond minimum necessary, but no reports of acting out or disobedience to family or agency rules, except for insistence on internal door bolt_."

And now that she lived on her own, she refused to lock her door any more. Turned her back on the need for doing so.

How had she done it? The file was replete with report cards, statements of astounding academic achievement, early graduation from high school and the fight she put up to go a year early to college despite "_precocious intellect but impaired emotional functioning_." As if their own actions weren't what caused any impairment.

Impaired emotional functioning? You nearly heaved again. The fact that she hadn't slit her wrists by that point was all you needed to know she functioned better than anyone else. But she won out on the battle to get out, as much as she could, to get off to college, and her "family" at the time was happy to only have to give her room and board on the breaks until she aged out. And at age eighteen, midway through another excellent semester, paid for by scholarships and loans she took out, no help from the agency or anyone else, the file just ended, abruptly. As if the magical number, eighteen, made what had happened before somehow evaporate under that magical label, "adulthood."

There were no clues to her parents. No leads on their whereabouts. No one attempted to contact her after she went in. And there was no grandfather. No wonder she'd lied to you, never spoke of it. It was a horror show, the thing you prayed nightly would never, ever happen to your own child.

It was inadequate, utterly so, but you closed up the file, placed in the back of a desk drawer where it would sit, a silent reminder of what it meant to get on with your life, and left the vomit filled trashcan for the cleaning people. Went home, showered, changed your clothes—you'd heaved so forcefully that it spattered. Brushed your teeth.

You picked up Chinese, telling Sid "_it's something for Bones, she's had a rough day_," and knocked on her door. Pasted on a smile when she opened the door without the sound of any bolts or chains sliding away. One sign of her emotional functioning. She only left one lock between her and the world, when if you were her? Well, you weren't her, that's all there was to it, and you couldn't even go after the people who'd hurt her.

"_It's midnight_."

"_I drove by, saw your lights were on_." Right. With Chinese for two in the car. But she let you in anyway. She let you in at all, so far.

She was stronger than you—at least your mother had loved you, everything else at home notwithstanding. There'd been some offset to all the horrors you'd seen at home, and yet you were so weak that you still gave into your demons when they finally caught up with you. She'd gone on after that magical number, eighteen, to do so many functional things that no one could possibly catch up to her. Certainly not you.

And then the findings that led to McVicker, and that barn.

"_My name is Dr. Temperance Brennan. My father was a teacher. My mother was a bookkeeper_."

"_I know who you are. Hey. I know. It's okay. Shh. It's gonna be alright."_

You didn't know if it would be alright. But she deserved to have someone try to make it alright for her. And you didn't really know who she was—how could you possibly imagine what that file meant in actual experiences? But you knew enough now about who she was to have someplace to start.


	38. It's a Guy Hug Just Take It

A different take on **_Mount Everest's You and Me_**, set after what will be Booth's kidnapping by the Gravedigger in **_Hero in the Hold.

* * *

  
_**

After you finished the immediate paperwork, made sure his brother for once took responsibility and took him home from the hospital while you dealt with the remaining questions from the rest of the Agents and prompted the rest of the team, even Cam, out of their exhaustion to answer their questions, you walked out to the front of the hospital. Jack followed you.

"Are you going to see him?" he asked.

"Of course," you replied.

He looked at you a long moment, then said "Did he stay with you that night?"

You shook your head.

Jack looked angry, all his own unresolved torment coming out to the forefront all over again. On your behalf this time. "Then why does he deserve you keeping him company?"

You looked at him levelly. "Because I remember what it was like to think I would never see him again. No matter what happened afterward, I always remembered that. I don't know what he thought when he didn't know what would happen, but it doesn't matter. I know what he feels like-- I can at least be there for him."

He nodded, accepting. "I'll drive you."

You cracked a smile. "Good. I think I lost my wallet someplace in all the commotion. It would be hard to catch a taxi that way."

Jack laughed, all the tension and terror and furious energy breaking all at once. "Temperance Brennan, admitting she's a bit less than completely prepared."

"It happens sometimes."

He laughed again, then walked you to his car. The drive there was silent as you looked out the window feeling grimy, exhausted, a million years old, and infinitely relieved. At least you had your keys in your pocket. Somehow you'd managed not to lose those.

You used your key to his place for the first time, letting yourself in quietly. Jared was sitting on his couch, jacket and tie off, hat tossed to the side, looking tired and relieved and you hoped now, appreciative of what you both almost lost.

"He's in the bedroom," Jared said quietly. You nodded. There wasn't much else to say to him, and you were too tired to have words for anyone besides Booth. He took another look at you, then stood and gathered his things. "He needs you more than he needs me, I think," then passed you, his hand briefly squeezing your shoulder before he walked out, shutting the door quietly behind him.

"Did you say something, Jar?" came Booth's voice, as he wandered out of his bedroom, undressed. Looking exhausted, and relieved, and under all of that what you knew was repressed suffocating terror. He stopped as he looked at you, too shocked for the moment to say anything.

It was feeble, but it was the only thing I could think of. "At least I didn't break into your bathroom this time."

He looked down at himself, realized he was naked, and laughed weakly. "No, no you didn't." Still he stood looking at you, then started speaking again in a half-strangled voice as something shifted in his face.

"I didn't come to your place... then... to make sure you were okay," he said shakily. "I... let you go home by yourself. You... didn't even have a Jared."

You shook your head. "No. But it's okay. I got over it, mostly. You'll get over this, too."

He snorted, a long ragged exhalation following it, and a shudder of cold passing over his skin.

You took a step toward him, then said "You should finish getting changed or whatever you were going to do before I came in."

He nodded and said hesitantly, "I was going to take a hot shower-- I'm freezing-- but I ... I ... couldn't quite find the nerve to get near any water right away."

You were bad at this, but you remembered how getting in an elevator or your car by yourself was terrifying those first few weeks. "You go get started, let me take off my coat and I'll come sit on the other side of the curtain and keep you company, okay?"

He nodded agreement but seemed unable to turn around and do as suggested. Well, he'd said once that you could give him a guy hug if he got scared. While what you felt far exceeded a guy hug, you could at least give him that. You took one step toward him, then another, and by the third step you were there, and had wrapped your arms around his waist, his cold, clammy skin. He paused for a moment, so you looked up at him and smiled. "It's a guy hug. Just take it."

His arms closed around you then, and you squeezed him with everything in you. For now, having him back was enough.


	39. Life is What Happens

_**Several variations on this story have been bouncing around in my brain—this is the one that made its way into the clear light of day. This is most emphatically **__**not**__** a B/B pairing, though there is a pairing. Angsty. And thought-provoking, I hope.**_

_**

* * *

**_

We were standing over the balcony, looking down not into the lab but out into the gardens. It had been a hard case, and the whole team was bushed. I'd come up for coffee and Cam joined me as we idly looked out the window, content not to talk. It had been a three sunrises and three sunsets case, the last finally setting outside the lab. I checked my watch, and noticed it was almost a half hour since Bones said she'd be up in twenty minutes to join me, so I set my coffee down on the table and tipped Cam a smile before tracking my partner down.

She was in her office-- and she wasn't alone, I saw, as I started across the long diagonal of the lab toward the fishbowl she worked in. She was sitting on her couch, and Hodgins, of all people, was standing behind the couch, rubbing her neck, both their backs to me. I didn't think I'd ever seen the two of them touching after the Gravedigger case, but ever since he and Ange broke up, it was weird-- she and Jack seemed to be closer, even though you'd think it would be Ange who would be closer to Bones. But Ange had Roxie and seemed to be one of those women who lived their whole lives through their current romantic relationship, so I guess it wasn't out of the realm of possibility for Bones to try and be there for Hodgins. The squints didn't seem to pick sides that way. Certainly, Ange and Hodgins seemed to be getting along fine. The secret lives of squints, I guess.

I was about halfway across the floor when I stopped short. Bones leaned back into Hodgins where he was standing behind her, and he gently smoothed back a strand of hair that fell into her face, before leaning down to kiss her cheek. And she-- turned into the kiss, kissing him back with her eyes closed.

"Ah," came Cam's quiet voice behind me. I was completely unable to turn around and look away as Jack's hand caressed the side of her face, and her hand came up to twine around the back of his neck.

I felt the floor fall out from under me, and suddenly nauseous, I turned. Cam had a sympathetic, almost pitying look on her face.

"How long?" I managed.

She shrugged. "That they've been working toward it? Or since they've been kissing? A month and two days that they've been working toward it-- the latter? Last night a few hours after you left and we were all still waiting for data to render ... it was sweet," she said, smiling in remembrance.

"But ... how?"

She looked at me keenly, that way she's always had of telling me something I'm really not going to like.

"A month and two days ago, Booth, was the second anniversary of their Gravedigger kidnapping. They both stayed late to work. You peeled off for a Capitals game, Angela had something with Roxie, and I only remembered after everyone else left and I saw them sharing Vietnamese in her office and looking stressed as all get out. I couldn't think of why until I looked at the calendar, and then I realized, apologized for not remembering earlier, and got the hell out. I think they worked the whole night through. It's been ... well, slow but sure ever since, I think, though Brennan's not the type to flaunt herself, as much of a goofball as Jack is. That kiss, though. That was sweet." Another fond smile graced her face, and I felt my heart clench. I could imagine—Jack was handling her tenderly, like a new and sincere lover should. He was a good guy, no contest.

"Why didn't she remind me?" was the only coherent thing I could manage.

"Why didn't you remember?" Cam countered. "You were busy with your own stuff. We all were. They're neither of them the type to ask for help, though they'll give it in spades. So … they found each other, I guess, that night. I don't know, it was just … the air was different around them afterward."

"But ... I was going to ..." I trailed off. Was I? When? We'd been working together for four years. How long was long enough?

Cam patted me on the arm. "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans, Seeley." With a last sympathetic look at me, she walked off to her office-- leaving me to turn once again and look at my partner. Who looked happy. With Hodgins.

So much for my plans.

* * *

"**_Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans_**." There may be other versions of this quote, but the one I've always known is from John Lennon.


	40. Temperance Joy

_**I did a more angsty version of this in the earlier Magpie pieces "The Name of the Rose" and "First Name Basis," but I was in the mood for a fluffier Brennan**_. **_Hope you enjoy._**

* * *

Temperance Brennan knew the meaning of temperance. Act moderately—with deliberation. Think before you speak or act. Align your thoughts, choose your words carefully. The childhood taunt, "no take-backs" writ large. Once something was out there, there was no choice but to have to follow up on others' response to the articulated thoughts or telegraphed actions. If you were cautious, you could control and predict others' responses. Avoid harm. A tempered communication prompted a tempered response—you don't get close, but you don't get harmed, either. And in a way, it was fitting that it wasn't her "real" name, but a name imposed on her later, a name that was supposed to keep her safe.

She knew it wasn't possible to control one's actions all the time. And she loathed when she lost control, acted from something other than temperance. Or-- she used to. But recently? Each time she'd acted without temperance, without inhibition, she now realized she'd done it because someone tried to take from her something or someone who'd given her back her birth name—joy. When someone negated her access to Joy, to being Joy, to simply enjoying things rather than assessing, modulating, refraining, she turned into a Fury, the mythical, vengeful woman. Except she was real, and gave vent to her fury. Gil Lappin. Veleska Miller. The killer who'd exposed Andy to harm. Pam Nunan.

Andy. The infant who was not yet a rational creature. Who simply responded to smiles or caring gestures, who sought warmth and responded to what she would give him. He was not temperate—anything but. He wasn't judging her in any processed manner. Rather, her results received basic, uninhibited responses. If she did the right thing, which face it, was hard to reason out ahead of time, he smiled, quieted, slept, burrowed into her. If she did the wrong thing, also hard to fathom at the outset, he cried and squirmed and fussed. It came to distress her when he fussed—and not because she'd failed to do something right. Simply because the effect made for an unhappy Andy. All that mattered was that whatever it was that she did, he ceased fussing, smiled, quieted, burrowed into her chest and abdomen when she held him against her. He was warm, had what Angela called "_fresh baby smell_" when he slept, and gave off heat like an oven.

Once she stopped assessing, attempting to reason out the right response, and just picked him up, started trying various things in succession to see which worked fastest, she was quicker able to calm him. She felt a smile bloom on her face when he smiled, or cooed. Unexpected, certainly. She'd never planned on wanting an infant. But it was instinctive, and her own instinct had been triggered. She was a rational creature, but she knew better than to stifle an instinct. She let instinct guide her with Andy, and it worked. He quieted, cooed, accepted what she could give him. When they caught up with the killer, it was only the fact that Booth caught him first that restrained her. If she'd caught him first—well, her reaction would have been anything than tempered, even so little as merely grabbing him by the collar, cutting his air off, and slamming him hard enough into the fence that he would see stars. She'd enjoyed comforting Andy. Enjoyed that she brought him comfort. And amazed to find that comforting him comforted her, too.

But those other moments of Fury—all vented at those who tried to deprive her of joy. Joy recaptured, since really, there were few moments from when she was a child that she could recall being joy-full. Of being Joy—because being Temperance hadn't kept her completely safe. As Temperance, she'd been harmed, been lonely, despite her best efforts to modulate her interactions with others to prevent it. And though she'd done her best to suppress even the thought of It so that she wouldn't have to process it, much less inhibit the way she expressed herself around a communication too risky to make, the fact was—Booth gave her joy. She enjoyed his company. Enjoyed the way he made her laugh. Enjoyed the way he challenged her and introduced her to things she'd had no exposure to. Enjoyed the way he respected her work. And enjoyed the way he smiled back at her, laughed at her, leaned into her or hip-checked her or punched her in the shoulder when she stopped thinking and let herself try, instinctively, to draw those reactions from him—to make a joke, to smile at him, to praise his son or him since she knew how much he loved his boy, to put a hand on his arm when it was a hard case for him. When people tried to take that from her—when she was in a position to react—she was Furious.

She knew she was Furious. And selfish—but she didn't care what other people thought of her reaction while she was in the midst of it. She regretted the aftereffects, certainly, but … what she'd actually done? She didn't regret it—she couldn't bring herself to be. She was Furious because of what she needed from and wanted to give to Booth—and while some aspect of her was angry that Parker should be deprived of someone who felt for him what she'd felt for Andy, wanted to give that, preserve that for Booth—really, she was Furious for herself. For their attempts to deprive her of Booth's company—her source of joy, and her ability to give what little joy she could in return. And face it—Furious at him, for a bit, at making her think she'd never find Joy, be Joy again. But she was too overjoyed to see him again, in the end, to do anything but what her instinct wanted to do-- forgive him, enjoy him again.

"Hey—Bones. You in there? Woo-hoo…"

She looked up from her reverie to see her partner sitting across from her at his dining room table—one of their occasional "_I dare you to drown your sorrows after a hard case quicker than I can_" alcohol-fueled evenings. These nights were not temperate at all—just letting go of the anger in one another's company. Company they enjoyed—took comfort in.

"Sorry," she said, then looked back down at the table and the shot glass in front of her.

"You giving up, there, Bones?" he charm smiled at her—dared her to quit.

She usually could match him, shot for shot. Sometimes on a given night he'd out-drink her. Sometimes it was the opposite. Over time, it all evened out.

"No… not at all." she responded, knocking the shot back and making him laugh as she wiped her hand over the back of her mouth to address the small dribble of scotch that escaped her.

"Whatcha thinkin' in there, Temperance?" he asked, his voice slightly slurred by the number of shots they'd consumed. "Th'only person I know who thinks even more when she's drunk than when sh's sober."

"Do your shot, Booth," she ordered, refilling her own glass. "I'm getting ahead of you—and really, I'm just starting to enjoy myself."

He looked at her a long moment, his warm eyes sharpening, losing the slight blur of the alcohol, then took his own shot. "N'joying yourself, huh?"

"Yep," she grinned, pouring him another shot and raising her glass. He raised his own, an answering smile on his face. "Always do, when I'm with you," she said, then swallowed her scotch, the warm pleasing burn filling her almost as nicely as Booth's company, the thought of it all instinctive for once. Not temperately. Not under the alcohol's influence, either. She wasn't that drunk to be uninhibited via mediating intoxicant. No—she just wanted to see that smile when she praised him.

It worked. "Aw, Temperance, you're gettin' soft," he said, grinning more widely, then swallowed the alcohol.

Temperance, hmm? When he said it, it meant something besides the usual meaning—he understood there was more than that under the name. To hell with it. She wanted to enjoy herself. She got up, made her steady-legged way around to his side of the table, then said "Make room, you," as she poked him in the shoulder.

Surprised, he pushed his chair back from the table, and she promptly sat down on his lap, then wrapped her hands around his neck, tested laying her head against his shoulder. Yes—her instinct was right. He was warm—gave off heat like an oven, was so comforting. And he had that fresh Booth smell. Like Andy—but different. And when he turned to look at her, there was a pleased smile on his face—like Andy, but different, when she did something just guided by instinct. "Well, hello Temperance," he drawled as she lifted her head from his shoulder and smiled at him.

Andy liked dancing phalanges. She gripped her phalanges a bit more tightly around Booth's neck, then kissed him. He kissed her back—uninhibitedly so, pulling her close, their chests burrowing against one another, instinctively.

"What brought that on?" he said when they parted for air. "Not that I mind, Temperance, but…"

She cut him off with a kiss. "Like I said. Just starting to enjoy myself."


	41. Wild Horses

**Wild Horses

* * *

**At least he wasn't the only loser out running at six-thirty on a Saturday morning, Booth thought to himself. It was one of those cold clear mornings where everything around was silent and any noise was twice as loud as it would be in warmer, more moist air. His footfalls on the path sounded almost like gunshots. The sun wasn't up yet, but it was light enough out to run without worrying about getting mugged or tripping on unseen obstacles on the footpath. Directly opposite him, over the Tidal Basin, running toward him, was another lone runner-- Booth wasn't the only one out of bed, rather than entangled in a warm mess of limbs to only wake slowly, leisurely, to take his time because there was no place he'd rather be. He'd come here for the first time in a while because he couldn't bear the thought of running on the treadmill in what was sure to be an otherwise empty gym. At least here, he'd be alone under the sky-- except not, since there was at least one other person with no one to keep them in bed at this ungodly hour.

_Bitter, much_? he thought to himself. It wasn't like he wasn't trying to meet other people. He was-- almost desperately, and that was what made it all the worse. Seeley Booth had _never_ been desperate when it came to women-- ever. But for way longer than he wanted to think about (and probably longer, he tended to suppress the actual time that had passed out of misplaced pride) he'd been unable to make it past a first or second date with a woman without becoming bored, unable to connect, unable to find any chemistry. There was no click, no black magic, none of that stuff his partner claimed not to believe in. And of course, _she_ was why there was no click, no connection, no physical, no emotional attraction to anyone else.

His damned partner. The most infuriating, brilliant, frustrating, challenging, beautiful, naive, all-knowing woman. Bones. He supposed, theoretically, that there were women who might surpass her on any one of those qualities (although it would be hard on the beautiful and brilliant parts), but he could safely say that he'd would never meet anyone besides her who was the superlative combination of all of those things. Which is why, of course, he was out running before true dawn on a Saturday, even though he'd had a nice dinner with a woman who objectively, _objectively, listen to yourself there, Seeley boy, even when you're whining to yourself about Bones, you sound like Bones_, had an interesting job at CIA as an Arabic language analyst, was funny, smart, good looking, and thank God she had red hair and green eyes, the last time he'd gone out with a blue-eyed brunette it was all he could do to finish dinner-- but nope.

By the end of dinner there was no click, despite trying to charm both himself and her into believing he was interested in her. The poor woman had sealed her death knell, of course-- she'd actually brought up Bones because she'd heard Bones was his partner, _law enforcement, it's a small world, after all, even in a city with five thousand cops_, and was interested in how he found it to work with a scientist and celebrity, "_although I met her once at my shooting range and she's quite a shot, very nice, too, if a little reserved. She seems quite physically fit_." Figures there was a women's only gun club and that Bones was a member. So he'd answered the question and shifted the conversation as smoothly as possible. Because answering the question as his inner miserable bastard wanted to-- "_you'd have to bring up my partner and remind me I'm blowing all this money on dinner with someone besides her?_" Not smooth.

_Stop thinking about Bones. Start thinking about not getting mugged or tripping on the footpath. How embarrassing would that be, sniper and lawman gets mugged on a morning run because he's too busy mooning over his partner to pay attention?_

He directed his attention to the footpath ahead, the bare branches of the cherry trees stark against the slowly-brightening sky. It was going to be one of those below-freezing clear blue-skied days, the sky such a deep blue that it was like a Technicolor movie. Azure? That was what Angela called it, except she'd been referring to it while looking for a pastel pencil of hers she was looking for to fill in the eyes on a sketch of Bones for Max for his birthday.

_Everything comes back to Bones. You can't even think about the sky without thinking about your partner. Your mind's running in circles-- tighter and tighter ones, too, like Parker does when he keeps circling in on himself until he gets dizzy and falls over onto his side, laughing hysterically. Except, well-- you fell a long time ago, and you've been running away ever since, and laughing is the last thing you feel like doing. And no matter where you run, all roads lead to Bones._

With concerted attention, he looked across the basin again at the other runner. She'd been a mile away, maybe more, when he saw her-- _her? yeah, her_-- across the basin, and in the few minutes that had passed, she'd made good time. Very good time. She was tall, lean, silhouetted against one of the breakaways where the trees were thinner-- fast and with a long, measured stride, well-suited to her height. His drill sergeant in the Army, the one who'd been a high school track champ before he decided his mission in life was to make his way up through the ranks just so he could terrorize people at boot camp-- he would have called her stride "_goddamned perfect form, ladies and gentlemen, head up, slight lean, arms pumping, stride long, now get your asses out there and run, goddamnit, run!_" But at least Booth had good form and stamina as a result-- their unit always beat all the PT tests, "_and why the hell not, you lose your damned weapon and your own two feet may be the only damned things that get you out of there_."

Yeah. He'd really have liked the way this woman ran. They always said '_ran like a gazelle_' to mean someone ran gracefully, but Booth didn't think that was right. Gazelles were herd animals. When they ran, it was often because they were being chased by a predator. This woman wasn't like that-- she was purposeful in her stride, not panicked. She was strong, and knew what she was doing-- she was running fartlek intervals as she went, bursts of speed from anywhere from fifty to two hundred meters-- she dropped in and out of her sprints and quicker paces gracefully-- easily-- as if she was used to testing herself this way. There was nothing jerky about the way she transitioned from the '_knees up, lean forward, pump those goddamned arms and just sprint, you lazy bastards_' sprint to her longer, natural stride. Gazelle was all wrong.

As he continued to watch the woman running toward him, he remembered what she reminded him of. When he'd finished boot camp, he hopped a C130 with a buddy back to Wyoming. Ernie's family had a sheep ranch, but they also contracted with the government to manage the mustang population nearby. Booth couldn't ride a horse if his life depended on it when they first got there (though he'd at least learned to sit a horse without getting dumped on his ass by the third day) but when Ernie suggested they take the truck and go check out the herd, he'd been game.

It had been one of the most beautiful and most sad things he'd seen in his life. The herd wasn't spooked by Ernie's truck-- they knew the family's vehicles enough, and Ernie knew how to approach slowly so they saw him coming. But when they went further out, off road, there was a group of five, maybe six of them-- just running. Flat out, and then slowing, then putting on speed again, then wheeling and turning, and heading back in the direction they'd came. They'd toss their heads, roll their eyes, speed off again, their manes and tails streaming behind them. They were a combination of things Booth had never seen before-- proud, strong, economical, beautiful, and completely uninterested in the truck he and Ern were bumping along behind them in.

"_Why're they running, Ern_?" he'd asked. Ernie just shot him a look. "_Because they can, Seel. They'll run out of room in another seven miles or so ... every once in a while one of 'em makes a break in the fence and we have to go round 'em up, but ... they like to run anyway._" When Ernie explained it, it practically broke Booth's heart, made him want to cry in a way he hadn't in years. They'd been running even though they knew they weren't going to get anywhere-- but they ran anyway, within the fences hemming them in. Something so gorgeous, that ought to be able to run as far as it wanted, and it couldn't. And yet they ran as fast and as freely as they could, all the same. He wasn't as sentimental then as he was now, but he'd been quiet in the truck the rest of the trip, and Ern'd seemed to get it. "_Somethin', hunh, Seel_?" had been his only remark when they got back to the ranch.

Once Booth learned to sit a horse without getting dumped on his ass, he'd borrowed one and rode over so he could take his time watching them on his own. It was even sadder out there on in the air on the horse, out of the cab of the truck-- the feel of the wind and the smell of the dirt and the brush, the sight and grit and feel of the dust their hooves kicked up when they ran, the way it all came to a halt in a seven by seven mile habitat. Like they were gerbils or something. The only thing he'd seen that day that hadn't left him sad was a mare and a stallion, running together, clearly taunting and having fun with each other as they wheeled and ran. They'd peeled out on a long stretch together, keeping complete pace with each other, though they seemed to be taking turns being just a nose ahead of the other, before they slowed and wheeled and played again for a while. He'd tried to describe it to Ernie afterward, and couldn't find the words. Ernie'd just nodded. "_Cowboys're either poets and singers, Seel, or they don't say nothin' at all, 'cuz they can't find the right words to describe it_." Then he'd given Booth a shit-eating grin and said "_There's a reason Mick Jagger sang about wild horses and draggin' it outta ya_."

Whoever she was, she was like one of those mustangs-- running for the hell of it even though she seemed to know she wasn't going to get anywhere at the end of it. She'd finish her training, her loop of the basin, whatever other part of her run she had planned, and then go off to whatever she did to make weather-appropriate running clothes and running shoes affordable.

He picked up his pace. She was maybe fifteen hundred meters off now, and he wanted to see what she looked like. He felt more of a click, more black magic, more connected to, more interested in this woman than he had in his last five dates combined, and while there was no graceful way to pick someone up on a run, _I mean,_ '_hey, baby, nice stride?' come on, Seeley, that's about as lame as it gets_, but he'd be damned if he wouldn't try anyway.

He slowed up a bit so he could get his breath a little more under control, though he hadn't been going full out at all, hadn't even been doing any training intervals like this woman had-- but if he was going to talk to her, he didn't want to be as physically breathless as his heart was now starting to feel. She was completing another fartlek interval, head down, charging for fifty meters then slowing, dropping back into her regular long stride, and now she was only five hundred meters away.

_What was it you said, Seeley boy? All roads lead to Bones? _As he drew nearer, he could see she was smiling-- had already recognized him. Maybe she'd done her kinesthe-whatever thing and picked him out when he'd first seen her, known it was him all along. And yet-- hadn't he known it was her all the time, too? Really. He was only fooling himself.

When she reached him, she slowed up a bit, and he turned so he was running _with_ her and not _away from her if you'd just keep being a coward and keep running, despite your conviction that you had to meet this whoever-she-was, _despite the brief moment of panic he experienced as they met on the path. But he could hardly run away from her under these circumstances-- no, he was face to face with her, and not just physically. _Goddamned metaphors.  
_

"Booth," she said with a smile, looking at him as he fell into stride next to her. "You have quite a well-measured running stride, much more disciplined than most amateur runners."

_"Hey, baby, nice stride?" _Okay, so it worked after all, at least he was feeling all warm and fuzzy. "Morning, Bones," he managed. "Thanks. You too. My hardass boot camp drill sergeant was a track champ-- made sure we knew how to run our asses of the right way."

She chuckled, then tossed her hair as a strand fell out of her ponytail. "Well, a man with a rifle can be very persuasive in teaching you how to measure your cadence."

Booth snorted out loud in response-- Bones was funny, she just didn't joke much, and when she did it was always a sort of surprise. "Something like that," he said when he was done laughing. "What brings you out at the crack of dawn, Bones?"

She shot him a look. "I always run here-- it's a seven mile loop from my place along the mall to here and then back. Unless there's ice or snow, or we have a case, I'm out here every morning."

"You always run fartleks?"

She nodded, eyes still trained ahead of her, the hair in her ponytail bobbing behind her. "I like them-- I haven't raced in a while, probably won't, but ... the burst of speed is exhilarating. Nothing to think about except ... faster." She shot him a quick glance, almost looking shy.

"Makes sense," he agreed. "Mind if I join you? My ... running's gotten kind of sloppy and unfocused lately. You can whip me back into shape."

She gave him another look as if she wasn't sure he was serious. He returned her gaze and just nodded, before she gave a slow smile and an "Okay. But I'll take it easy on you today. Tomorrow, however ... you're in for the run of your life, Booth."

The parallels were not lost on him-- not at all. "I don't doubt it, Bones. And I'll let you buy me breakfast at the diner afterward to make it up to my poor, wounded pride."

She just gave him one of those smiles she got when he said something nice to her, and he kicked himself as he realized he hadn't seen that smile in a while. He ran at her pace for a while, and quickly realized that while he was probably faster in a sprint than she was, she was almost as fast as he was otherwise. Neck in neck, so to say. They ran for a bit longer in silence and he realized it had been a while since he'd just enjoyed her company, without either letting his inner cranky or inner horny monologue distract him from just paying attention to _her_.

He looked over at her again. Catching the glance, she shot him another quick smile before saying "Keeping up so far?"

He felt an answering grin erupt on his face. "Yeah. I'll keep up, Bones, don't you worry." They ran a few moments longer, the even pace she'd been setting forcing him to pay more attention to his own-- this last half-mile since he'd joined her was the first run he'd had in a while where he'd really hit his stride so that the random footfall didn't sent at least a bit of a crunch or a jar through his _not-getting-any-younger-there, Seeley boy_ feet or knees or back. But this was a good run, '_a flow, when it's you, the sky and the air and your control over your heartbeat, your pace and your breathing, and nothing else matters except where you're going, boys and girls. That's a good run_.'

"Bones," he said, looking over at her, and wondering if she'd mind if he tried to make conversation on the rest of the run. "Did I ever tell you about this time I went to Wyoming with a buddy of mine after boot camp? His family managed mustangs-- you ever seen mustangs, Bones?"

She smiled at him, listening. "No, but I've always wanted to."

"You'd like them. My buddy Ernie, he also ended up going to Ranger School with me, we hopped an air force cargo plane back to the base in Cheyenne and went up to his parents' ranch. They had sheep, but there was a BLM rangeland and it was chock full of mustangs..."

The sky deepened to azure as they ran and he told her the story about the wild horses he'd seen once, years ago, the two of them keeping pace all the while-- he didn't have a hard time dragging the words out this time.

* * *

**_I had my iTunes set to alphabetical, just to mix it up, while I was writing something else. U2's Wild Horses and the Stones' Wild Horses came on, one after the other. I couldn't resist._**


	42. Not Bad for Gillies

**_Spoiler Alert for Double Trouble in the Panhandle. A different POV on the events in that episode._****Not bad for gillies**

* * *

I watched the two of them walk away back to their trailer--they looked damned tired. Hell, we were all tired. All of us missed Jenny and Julie. I knew when it happened that it would be the death of us-- I knew it, but just didn't say so. But now everyone knew it.

They were all settled into the mess tent when I was done watching the two of them go back into their trailer.

"What are we going to do now?" asked Tumbles, despondent. They all were.

They were all looking at me-- waiting for me, the captain of a sinking ship, to tell them what to do. And I was stumped for a moment-- until I wasn't.

_"You're going to have to explain why they were wrapped in a sheet. That indicates a caring, feminine act."_

_"You're going to have to explain why you forged a note in their handwriting."_

"Come on, ladies and gentlemen, let's get this show on the road," I said, clapping my hands.

They looked puzzled for a long moment, and I looked back over my shoulder. Lights off, trailer not rocking any longer. That was a hell of an act they put on. Not bad for gillies. But-- they didn't have to tell us. He could have had copters here to stop us from going if he was really serious. They didn't have to say what we'd need to explain.

"They delayed the close of the curtain, ladies and gentlemen," I said, casting my eye over my audience-- the ones who wanted to willingly suspend their disbelief for just one more show, two more shows, as many more shows as we had before it all caught up with us for final in the end.

"I've always heard Mexicans were real fans of the circus," I said, then swept a grand bow. Bravado and boasting-- the central traits of a ringmaster.

When I stood, their eyes were alight.

"Vamanos a las montanas de Mexico!" I said, twirling my arm in the air. Did they have mountains in Mexico? We were about to find out.

"Hablo un poco de espanol tambien," offered Madam Esmelda.

There was that quiet-- that hush-- that psychic connection that happens right before the curtain goes up, the next act goes on, the lights go on for the first time at the new site. And then people stood, as quietly as people moving backstage during a show always move, and started to gather their things.

Two hours later their trailer was still quiet, and we were ready to go. Our twenty-four-hour man pulled out first, like he always does, everyone else falling in line. Leaving me to pull up the rear. As I always did, as was fitting. The captain always goes down with the ship when the lifeboats are full.

I pulled out, watching the red taillights of the full lifeboats in front of me. It would be a long drive-- I'd have time to think of a way to get Magnum off, to put it all on myself.

If I even had to. I wondered. If we drove all night, we could make the border. I think maybe they knew that.

And then I wondered some more. They fooled me pretty well, fooled us all, I suppose. We all thought they were first of Mays, hell, maybe gillies, but he had a quick hand with the knives, and she had a great set of gams, so I figured hey, what the hell. If they flopped, it was only one show. That Wanda, or whatever her name was, though-- she was show people at heart. He was more gilly than she was. He was nervous as hell when he threw those first knives-- but she trusted him, and it took him a few throws to get that. All that sex was an act, too, now that I thought of it more. Not the way he looked at her when she wasn't looking.

Her, though. She trusted him-- and I don't think he knows exactly how much. He was scared as hell to hurt her. He loved her. She trusted him utterly, though, and he didn't quite get that. But it's true. You've got to love someone totally to let them throw sharp, killer knives at you-- although damn, he was good in the end.

They could take that show on the road, if they weren't cops, and this was some other world. Hell, Id've asked them to come with us, too.

No-- they weren't bad for gillies. Not bad at all. I set my eyes beyond the taillights directly in front of me, to the moon rising on the horizon. Over the horizon, and hopefully at least one more show.


	43. Not Over, Not Ever

_**Spoilers for The Fire In The Ice

* * *

  
**_

_**Not over, not ever**_

I didn't mean to provoke him twice, but I thought I had a good reason-- I was trying to get at the source of what I'd seen out on that ice. It was incomprehensible to me at the time. But I stared death twice in the face this week, and death—Agent Booth-- didn't blink. He made damned sure I knew he-- death-- was there. And then, he walked off on me.

"_You know if I didn't you'd be dead right now instead of just wincing_."

I winced both times. It was only after he walked out of the room that second time that I saw he was right.

"_I've killed, but I've never murdered before_."

He was right. And why? As enraged as he was out on the ice, and staring me right in the eye in the observation room and my office-- I was wrong when I asked him earlier if he always had it under control. He was enraged, right to the brink-- but not over. Not ever.


	44. Make Me Feel Like A Guy

**Make Me Feel Like a Guy—  
Spoilers for S4's Perfect Pieces in the Purple Pond**

* * *

_You do plenty of things for me. You make me feel like a guy_.

She'd looked puzzled when you said it, and she might not understand it right now, maybe ever. But she did make you feel like a guy-- although you left silent (as you so often did) what just kind of a guy she made you feel like. She made you feel like a guy who could fix things-- and fix things for _her_. Like you wanted to do everything for her, make everything right for her.

There was so much you couldn't fix, or stop from happening in the first place. Hell, that was why you were in tyour job, at least partaways-- fixing the messes other people made so at least there would be some sense, some truth for them to know about what happened. But you were a fixer-- someone who prevented bad things from happening by, well, you supposed Bones would call it learned behavior, not unconscious instinct. Growing up at home, working to prevent bad things from happening to everyone else. Yeah-- you were a fixer, you'd learned that it needed to be done early on.

But Bones was a whole 'nother ball of wax. With Bones, you weren't fixing the country's enemies by taking them out secretively, one at a time, from cover of darkness and your breath caught in your chest every time wondering if you'd be caught. And you weren't fixing (and failing to fix) your family's problems. You weren't fixing (or failing) to fix your relationship with Rebecca. And you weren't fixing (or failing to fix) the problems wrought by criminals who killed and hurt and all you could do was clean up. Well-- all you and Bones could do was clean up-- she was a fixer that way, too, she helped tell the truth, catch the bad guys, as much as it scared you every single time you went out that she'd be hurt. You knew, though, that you couldn't fix these things as well without her.

But Bones, just by herself? She made you feel like a guy who could fix things for her. You wanted to, precisely because she didn't expect it of you. She'd dealt with so much and kept dealing with the shit life kept throwing her way-- long after your own stuff was just ghosts in your head that you still hadn't exorcised. Her ghosts kept coming back in the flesh, so to speak-- her mom's remains, her criminal father and brother, killers wanting to stop her from helping you fix things, from telling the truth, then her dad's trial, then Zach-- it was like it never _ever_ ended for her. You'd tried to help her get through all those things, and mostly you had. She seemed to be happier-- though she still played things close to the chest-- but you liked to think she had certain smiles and laughs just for you and nobody else.

You measured your success in the the little things that kept her going. Each little smile she gave you when you brought her coffee-- or when you pretended to be miffed when she drank your milkshake or stole your fries was a victory-- proof that she wasn't so weighed down by all that stuff that kept coming at her that she couldn't smile just for a bit. And that shy incredulous look on her face that she'd get sometimes when you said nice stuff to her-- you needed to compliment her more often. That expression told you she didn't get complimented enough, even now, and she couldn't quite believe what you said. That she was willing to toss her own book because some jackass sexist money-grubbing bastard told her her books were merely adequate and only sold because she was attractive practically broke your heart-- one dig at her, even after all your time put in trying to make her believe she was worth something, and she'd get fragile, withdraw. So you measured things slowly. Every time she let you hug her, or sling an arm over her shoulder, or put your hand at her back-- you felt like you'd fixed things a little, at least so that she had someone she could lean into, if only a little. That she leant on you at all was a little bit of a miracle.

Just her letting you fix those little things for her-- it made you feel like a guy who could fix things. And it helped you as much as it helped her, whether she knew it or not. Each time you helped her a little, it was like it wiped a bit more away of all the things that you'd failed at. So, yeah-- she made you feel like a guy. A guy who could fix things for her, and therefore had some chance at not looking back on his life and seeing still-broken things he'd failed to fix, including youself.

If you could help fix her, maybe she'd help you fix you. After all, she was a fixer too, though she might not quite know all the ways she fixed things. You did, though, and that was what mattered. If you could fix everything for her, well-- it'd fix things for you, too.


	45. More Things in Heaven and Earth

_**A/N: Spoilers for Hero in the Hold.  
**_

_**I've already written in Character Building that I'm very uncomfortable with the cemetery scene at the end of Hero in the Hold. Some folks have said that Brennan's seeing Teddy should be seen as metaphorical, a sign of her opening her worldview to Booth, or an indication that she's more in tune with his thoughts than ever. I have no problem, absolutely none, with Teddy being a figment of Booth's imagination, and what was needed to help him think his way out of the situation—but to extend it to Brennan? I think it pushes too far—it's either a conceit that just doesn't work, or just too Ghost Whisperer for my tastes.**_

_**All that to the side, however, I wanted to explore what it meant if Teddy really was a ghost of some sort, and Brennan really did see and speak with him. The below is a nod to a canon I'm not comfortable with—but the conceit of the theme grabbed me and wouldn't let go.

* * *

  
**_

It _would_ have taken two people to do some of the things Booth did to get out of that ship—even he didn't have that much adrenaline fueled strength. Of course, his official report didn't say "the ghost of my long-dead spotter appeared to me and helped me win free of the ship," whatever he might have red-facedly admitted to me after I got him home from the hospital and asked him what happened. But I'd said nothing, then—just made him hot decaf and held his hand on his sofa. There wasn't need, then, for more than that. Booth was exhausted, me too, and I was just so glad to have him back at all that I hardly cared how he got out onto that deck—just that he did.

"Nice day to be alive, isn't it?" the young man wearing corporal's braids asked me, a knowing smile on his face.

"It is," I agreed, looking half at him and half at Booth while he spoke with the girlfriend of his dead spotter.

Then I looked again at the young man still passing me.

After Booth's death, I became interested in all the insignia he bore on his uniform—he'd admitted it was his own and even explained a bit how he'd come to make Master Sergeant so early. But the combinations of insignia on the uniforms (and in presentation boxes) fascinated me—they comprised a complex language, one only discerning eyes could decode. Stars, bars and badges, braids, stripes and pins, different berets and "flashes" and color combinations on jackets and pants—each variation shaded the meaning of who you were, what you'd done, where you'd been in little codes of color and pattern.

I started first with Booth's uniform—learning the meaning of all the honors he never spoke of and rarely displayed in his office. He was proud of his country—but not proud of what he'd done in its name. Because of that, I never pressed him on what each ribbon or medal on his uniform meant—I just researched on my own. A near-photographic memory is useful that way. In the end, the colorful and metallic symbols told me what I already knew—that Booth was a man of courage and valor, putting other peoples' needs before his to his own significant peril, and that he was a leader of men under almost any possible circumstance.

But even after I'd completed the puzzle of Booth's insignia, I was fascinated by the minutiae. I expanded my inquiry to learn all about Booth's Rangers—the history of the unit, how it had changed over the years, with especial attention to the timespan of Booth's service.

The young man's uniform sent a chill down my spine. That color beret—those braids—those service commendations and merit awards—that dress uniform was retired, was no longer what was used by the Rangers. Even worse-- on the left breast of his decades' old and still fresh-looking dress jacket, the young man bore ribbons for the Purple Heart and the Medal of Honor, medals of exceptional valor—despite the fact that the other ribbons told that he was just a good soldier on his first deployment abroad to Iraq.

Those first two ribbons would only be awarded posthumously to someone so young, so inexperienced—it took everything in me to not turn around when Booth raised his hand to wave in my direction, to see if the ghost was still there. I wasn't ready, not yet, to see if he was waving at me—or at some spectral corporal in a new-looking uniform that he'd most likely been buried in. So I lifted my arm and waved back—hoping, pretending, needing for now to believe that William Shakespeare didn't know what he was talking about.

For now, I didn't want to think about more than that Booth was back—much less what Angela said when she told me I loved Booth. That part was true, and I would have to make sense of it soon. And this smiling young man, perhaps still standing behind me? There were more things than I'd dreamt of in my philosophy. Booth knew at least some of that—and I was starting to. I didn't know what it meant, but I felt the need to find out.

**There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,  
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.**

**Hamlet Act 1, Scene 5**


	46. All You Can Eat Pizza & Ice Cream

_**A/N: Booth and Jared's childhood couldn't have been all bad. A rumination on a past brotherly interaction might have made Jared respond as he did during Hero in the Hold when Brennan tells him he doesn't deserve Booth.**_

* * *

**_All you can eat pizza and ice cream_**

"Seeley?"

"What, Jar?" He kept the exasperation out of his voice. Sharing a room with his little brother was a total pain, he was always asking him stupid questions when he was trying to sleep, but like Mom said, Jar was little and he shouldn't be mean. But he was tired-- he had a little league game tomorrow morning, and he was tired. He was hoping they'd win, and Coach would take them out for all you can eat pizza and ice cream like he said he would if they won three games in a row. Seeley was pretty sure they would win, and he sure did want to. He loved all you can eat anything, but especially pizza. They beat Cliffside like by a billion runs the last time, and Seeley had tagged a way lot of people out at first base. He could probably do it again.

"You're gonna win tomorrow, right?"

Seeley turned over to look across the room at his brother's bed. There was just enough light from the street to see him, lying on his side and looking at him with that wide-eyed look he got sometimes. He wished Jar didn't look up to him so much sometimes. It kinda made just goofing around hard to do.

"Hope so, Jar," he said. Father O'Leary said pride was a sin, so he always said he hoped something would happen rather than it definitely would. Even though he was a really good hitter, too. He hit, like, a thousand of the million hits they'd won by last time.

"You're totally gonna," Jar said seriously. "'Cuz I was talking to Robbie, and he said he heard Cliffside has a new kid who knows how to hit, an' I said it didn't matter, 'cuz your team has you and you can hit an' run and field and one new kid on the other team doesn't mean nothin', 'cuz you practically beat them all by yourself last time."

Seeley blushed in the dark, hoping Jar wouldn't see it. He liked teamwork, liked all the other kids on his team, but he worked really hard to be a good player. Jar was his little brother, yeah, but it was nice to hear that someone thought he worked hard and was good. His chest felt warm like it did when Grandma got him that bike he only said once that he liked, and she went back and bought it for him a couple weeks later-- it was nice someone was listening.

"Thanks, Jar. Hope so."

"You totally are." He nodded decisively, confident in his big brother's abilities. "An', if you win, an' I do a good job with the bats, will you ask Coach if I can come eat pizza and ice cream with you guys?"

Seeley laughed and threw his Nerf football at Jared, aiming carefully to hit him in the stomach and not in the head. Trust Jar to be hungry, too. It didn't make him feel any less warm in the chest-- Jar wasn't a brownnoser.

"Yeah, Jar, I'll ask him. But you're the bat boy-- you're part of the team too, you know."

Yeah, he was only seven, and Seeley was nine, but they needed a bat boy to make sure everyone had the bats that they liked. Jar was always good about making sure the one with the red taped handle was out when Seeley got up at bat.

"Really?" Jar asked, sounding unsure.

"Totally." Seeley grinned at him in the dark, then said "Now shut up, squirt. We've got a game to win tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah..." said Jared softly. "We do."


	47. Namesake

_**A/N: I had this written before Hero in the Hold, including the part about Teddy being a "light in the darkness." While I had lots of issues with Hero, those scenes between Booth and Parker—well, they were humane, and humorous, and the actor was wonderful. As written, Corporal Edward Parker was indeed a suitable namesake.

* * *

**_

_**Namesake**_

Three months away from the tables, and everything was a damned struggle. Damned hard, with all those damned ghosts who only shut up when you had your hands full of cards.

You weren't even seeing Rebecca much at all any more-- she was in her last year at school and pissed that you were still trying to keep the "us" part of the two of you going, rather than shifting your focus to just being a good dad to your kid. What kind of father were you going to be? Government-sanctioned murdered, son of a drunk, reformed and relapsed and newly reformed gambler.

But you'd pushed away from the table this time before your pockets were empty-- that was something, wasn't it? Just a short relapse, and nothing in hock? You would just keep telling yourself that as you paced here in the waiting room, Rebecca's Dad and brother alternatingly indifferent and condescending. At least Becs had called you on the way to the hospital, told you her Mom was going to be in with her, told you that you should come and wait until the baby was ready to be seen. That was something, wasn't it?

It had been hours, and you were still pacing, occasionally going down the hall to the coffee machine to stoke up on the worst cups of mud you'd ever had in your life, nervous despite the fact that Becs wanted you here, at least for this part. Who knew how it was all going to fall out in the future-- at least you could tell your kid that you and Becs were both here when he or she first came into the world.

And then on maybe your three hundredth pass of the waiting room, Becs' mom came out. "Seeley?" she called, looking sympathetic. At least she still liked you-- she'd actually called you after Becs said no to tell you not to take it personally. Not that it helped, but still-- better that at least one of Becs' family was still sort of on your side. "Becca said to come on in," she continued then turned, motioning for you to follow. You resisted the urge to shoot any kind of look at her brother or Dad.

When you got in, she looked tired, and sweaty, and triumphant as she held a small, blue-wrapped bundle. A boy. You had a son. She gave you a watery smile, a sad one, as you sat on the side of the bed and leaned in to look at him. "Here," she said, shifting forward so you could take him in your arms. Your son.

He was so tiny. Red faced-- no hair to speak of. Brown eyes like yours and your Mom's. Little, perfectly-formed fingers, miniscule fingernails. Eyelashes and eyebrows, those small perfect ears. And heavy for how small he was, warm in your arms. You had a son.

"Hey, little man," you said. "Welcome to the world."

He seemed to focus his eyes on you for a minute and made a fist, such a tiny fist, that he waved at you. And then he let out a big sigh, shut his eyes, and seemed to get even heavier in your arms. He knew you were his Dad, that you'd always do what you could to keep him safe, and that he could sleep in your arms. The heavy weight on your shoulders of staying away from the tables these last long three months, and then the year before that, the empty part in the middle of you that had been there since Becs said she didn't love you enough to marry you-- you were lighter, and full again, that empty place Becs left full not with Becs, but something better. Something you both made. A son. _Your_ son. That weight on your shoulders was now this little weight in your arms—something to carry, not be crushed by. Someone you could be responsible for in the future—not just think about all your past failures.

You were just staring at him, and you probably had a fool grin on your face, but it was the first time you'd been truly happy in months. You tore your eyes away from him and looked up at Becs, and she had her own fool grin on her face. If she never smiled at you again like she was doing just now, well, at least you had this. That was something.

"We made a boy, Becs," you said, then looked at him again.

"We did," she said. "What do you want to call him?"

You looked up in shock-- you were sure she'd already had names all picked out, and that you weren't going to get any say. She must have seen some of it, and said lightly, "I only picked out girls' names. I figured I'd leave the boys' names to you."

You looked down at your son, and just then he screwed up his face and let out a burp, just like Teddy used to back in the mess tent. Teddy-- boy was that a huge ball of wax, his bleeding, gasping dead weight on your shoulders as you ran against time and time ran out on both of you-- but by the time your boy, your son, you had a son, was old enough to hear about all him, maybe you'd have worked through it better, be able to explain what happened not just to him, but maybe yourself. But Teddy-- he'd always been able to make everyone laugh, even in the most shitty situations. "_A little frickin' light in the darkness_," he'd say, before belching the alphabet or doing some impression again, or just made some smart-ass crack that had you busting a gut. Just like this little person, a little burp from him the first funny, bright thing you'd seen in months.

"Parker," you heard yourself say. "Let's call him Parker."

Looking up, Becs was smiling at you. "Parker, I like that."

You shifted your boy in your arms again, and he looked at you before his eyes fluttered closed again. "Hey, Parker, hey little man. I'm really happy to meet you. Really happy."


	48. Objectivity, Compromised

_**A/N: SPOILERS FOR HERO IN THE HOLD.**_

_**I'd like to do a think piece from Angela's perspective in Hero, but this one burst forth first-- Sweets was just kind of on the sidelines this episode, though he was trying to be what help he thought he could be. I wondered what he was thinking.

* * *

**_

_**Objectivity, compromised**_

A therapist isn't supposed to become involved subjectively—shouldn't become emotionally involved with his patients-- whether or not the patients are aware of it. It's not just all that tabloid having sex with your patients thing-- it's becoming attached to them, emotionally invested in a particular outcome that may or may not be in their objective best interests.

I thought it would be fascinating, being offered the chance to work with two such high-functioning and yet completely dysfunctional, co-dependent people like Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan. But what I'd thought of as mere co-dependency wasn't. It was also interdependence-- real complements, as I said, and nicely if I say so myself. I had no idea.

I knew Dr. Brennan was right when she told me to leave, and yet I distanced myself from my workplace immediately.

"_I'm a psychologist, not an agent_."

I was still FBI. Or I was as far as the Gravedigger might be concerned-- yet when confronted directly, I threw my lot in with the team, not the Bureau.

If I was still objective, I shouldn't have gone to Agent Booth's apartment with the rest of the team-- hell, why was I attending a social event to honor my patient as a colleague and not an observer in the first instance? I should have called the Bureau immediately-- but I didn't. I was too caught up by that something on Dr. Brennan's face as she stormed out of the lab to Booth's apartment, the rest of us trailing along in her wake like ducklings following their mother. We were imprinted on her, alright. And when we confirmed he was gone, when she, the scientist not the cop, pointed out how he'd been taken, I heard myself saying "we."

"_We need to pay the ransom." "We need to not involve the authorities_."

Where had that come from? _We_, Dr. Sweets? I _was_ the authorities, for crying out loud, but like a little imprinted duckling, I followed Dr. Brennan right back to the lab and into Hodgins' side lab-- and stood enraptured watching the passion play unfolding before us.

The two of them-- once compatriots under the ground, now combatants despite their shared experience-- bargained, blue eyes burning at cross purposes. Woe betide anyone who got in between them until their battle of wills was complete. Dr. Saroyan, Ms. Montenegro and I didn't even merit consideration-- and Dr. Saroyan said not a thing as Dr. Brennan dictated how things would go. He wanted revenge-- she wanted her partner back.

What Dr. Brennan was willing to do, I saw as it went on, what I was sure I'd never see, was what Dr. Hodgins would never have had the strength, obsession, or sheer will to do-- she would compromise each chain of evidence, each legal channel, whatever it took to get Agent Booth back. Nothing would escape the steel in her spine, reflected in her steely blue gaze. My observational skills to that point were sorely lacking, for me to think her somehow less invested than Booth in their partnership, simply because most of the time she was reserved.

I began to wonder how Dr. Brennan would get her revenge on Dr. Hodgins when this was over, one way or the other-- and whether Dr. Hodgins realized exactly what he had done. Between the way Dr. Brennan shot Pamela Nunan, and the way she punched Agent Booth-- it wasn't going to be good.

When Dr. Brennan decided how to handle things and told me to get lost-- well, I wasn't a scientist. And I couldn't admit what I'd seen to the Bureau-- wouldn't, not with Booth's life and not on my life either. As much as Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth pretended there was that line they didn't cross over every time he put his hand on her back or she let him get away with it-- I'd crossed the objective line too and cast my loyalties to the team. If the best way I could help was to get out of the way so they could do what they were best at, I'd do it. As if I hadn't crossed my own lines multiple times. Therapist, profiler, researcher? Headshrinker, colleague, observer? To what ends-- resolved conflicts, resolved cases, resolved intellectual challenges? There were no lines anymore, just tangles. Like a child's cats' cradle, all criss-crossing lines that only made sense when held together one way. Twist the cradle, unbalance it? It all turned into a knot.

I was as attached and interdependent on the partners and their team now as they were with each other. I'd made so many compromises just to keep working with them in any way that they'd let me-- just as they'd made whatever compromises they could to work together. Just as they would continue to compromise, over and over again not just to work together but to save one another. Subjectivity trumped all.

And like everyone else on the team, they'd sucked me into their orbit, even as the two of them revolved around each other. As they had since the start, I now realized. So I jumped at the chance to accompany Drs. Brennan and Hodgins and Ms. Montenegro, to help them in whatever way they would let me when it was time to commit felony conspiracy and tampering with evidence. Agent Booth's words in the past about teamwork had stuck with me after all.

And when we got there-- the war exchanged in the looks between Drs. Brennan and Hodgins-- Ms. Montenegro's confrontation of Dr. Brennan with the truth of her feelings for Booth (and far more successful than my "_that was a passionate act_" bullshit remark all those months ago, when I still held myself apart from the team)-- and then watching the monitor, those little blips that meant nothing, but that I could at least watch. Hell-- I was a trained observer, if no longer an objective one, and I had no real idea what I was seeing or hearing as the two ran from the blast.

"_We have nothing to say_."

We ducklings stood there and let Dr. Brennan take lead again, even as that judge and that patsy Perotta tried to call us on the carpet. As that ... woman ... stood there, smug, sanctimonious. I can't believe I didn't see that it had to be an inside job at that point. What was wrong with me? Oh, yeah. Compromised objectivity-- except if I were really a team member, I'd probably have suspected the Bureau sooner. Straddling the line is a dangerous thing, but I still wavered.

"_I think we have to accept ... he's cleaning up_."

I said it—I straddled the line again, casting my lot with the team when I walked out of that room, didn't stay in the building I was supposed to have Fidelity to.

I had a copy of some of Dr. Brennan's report from her kidnapping in her psychological profile, and was amazed then at her ingenuity and determination in getting that message to Booth, in blasting their way out of that car-- and now, in convincing Jared to steal Vega's body and then finding the injuries on Vega's skeleton that allowed her to identify the Gravedigger just by her posture and movement. The woman was a steel blue-eyed freight train, and I was useless as they interrogated her, or tried to-- there was no way that woman would crack under my profiling skills-- but Dr. Brennan? She brought force to bear again on Jared Booth, and that "spring cleaning" thing ended up being true-- the last set of facts needed to barrel through rt those last clues to Booth's location.

The entire experience was scary and chilling-- I learned things about myself I wasn't comfortable knowing yet. And I wondered how it would play out now that Dr. Brennan explicitly failed to deny that she loved Agent Booth when confronted again by her friend. But the thing that was most scary, most chilling, and yet the most perversely warming piece of teamwork of all came when Dr. Hodgins admitted he could actually murder the Gravedigger.

Dr. Brennan replied coolly, ever-so-matter-of-factly, "_If any group of people could murder someone, and get away with it, it would be us_."

I was part of that "us." She would drag me in, drag us in, drag us down with her as long as it got Agent Booth back. I was pretty sure, but not positive yet that I wanted to be part of that "us." And I was frightened, quite frankly-- I was in way over my head, no longer behind the observation glass, and yet these academics and noncombat officers were going for broke though they had no objectively reasonable basis to be able to solve this crime on their own—much less commit one so long as it brought their friend back. Why did they thing they could do it? I didn't feel like I could. It wasn't even a question of want-- it was a question of strength.

"_What, do you want to torture her_?" asked Dr. Hodgins.

"_I know a little bit about that_," Jared volunteered.

My fear-- my hesitation-- my not knowing where I stood on that line took that moment to shine through. "_What? No. Character is who you are under pressure, not who you are when __everything's__ fine. We're the good guys, we don't torture people_."

Brennan wasn't convinced, but at Dr. Saroyan's attempted intervention she let the team work a bit longer to compile the real evidence while she kept her eye on the Gravedigger. Somehow, though, I had no doubt Dr. Brennan and Jared would lock us all out of that room as time ran down, and I was more than a bit concerned leaving the two of them in there alone with her when the evidence from her storage locker arrived. Dr. Brennan didn't care about character, or about being the good guy. She only cared about one thing-- getting Agent Booth back alive.

As soon as we confirmed where Agent Booth was, finally, she was off like a shot-- but not without one utterly forceful, calculated blow-- with the Gravedigger's own briefcase, knocking her to the floor and not looking back. No regrets, no hesitation.

Objectivity, subjectivity, distance, attachment and lines. I'd crossed a line, become subjective, attached myself to an outcome that had Booth and Brennan working together however it took. As I watched Dr. Brennan run out of the lab, then turned back to look at that ... woman ... lying still on the floor, I realized I'd crossed the line permanently. Objectivity be damned. I was on Booth and Brennan's side, whatever that meant.

But in so choosing, I wondered just how far making this compromise, choosing this side of the line would lead me. I'd asked Agent Booth previously if he had his rage under control, and he'd said "_If I didn't, you'd be doing more than just wincing right now_." Now I wondered if I'd asked the right partner that question-- and whether, if there was time, Dr. Brennan would give me the same answer. I was sure I didn't want to know, though I knew the answer already. I just didn't want to admit it, because I'd chosen my side, committed to this team, not the Bureau. The time for observing was over. My objectivity was compromised. I was looking forward to subjectively sharing whatever experience came next.


	49. Suitable Father

_**A/N: **_

_**This is my take on the "Brennan asks Booth for a baby" debate. I don't think Brennan would treat him as a glorified sperm bank—I think that between"Baby in the Bough," "Finger in the Nest" and "Bone that Blew" she knows very well how seriously Booth feels about Parker and parenthood, and I choose to believe she also knows how she feels about Booth—but not the converse. Here's how I think it would spin out—in a definite one-shot.**_

_**

* * *

  
**_

**Suitable Father**

Another Saturday night, another no date, Brennan sourly reflected as she sat at her dining room table and flipped through her research materials. Not that the no date thing was anything new-- but she didn't suppose that it mattered at this point as she looked at the papers before her. Like anything else, she'd looked into both mainstream and cutting edge information, read all the applicable journals, and discussed the subject with experts. Now all she had to make a decision. She put her head in her hands, staring morosely at all the information, loathe to make up her mind.

She sighed. Took a sip of red wine. Paged one last time through the three best possibilities her research revealed, then sighed again.

A knock at her door, her partner's characteristic rap, interrupted her reverie, and her head snapped up at the sound. Booth. Dropping by on a Saturday night? Oh, no, she thought to herself, looking at the papers before her.

"Hey! Bones! You gonna let me in there or what?" she heard him call through the door. Her heart both leapt to her throat and sank to the soles of her feet.

"Just a minute!" she called, feeling uncharacteristically incapable of responding to the snap situation. As she stood there trying to decide how to respond to his sudden appearance he'd already used his key to let himself in, hand placed dramatically over his eyes.

"Bo-oones," he called, that damned smile on his face and a bag of what smelled like Thai under his arm, "I'm giving you half a minute to make yourself decent."

"You can look," she said, grabbing all the papers she'd so meticulously organized and shoving them into a disorganized pile. "I'm just doing some ... research," she said, lamely.

He smiled even more widely at her as she finished clearing the table, making way for the Thai. "Well, it's a good thing I stopped by, then, because it's ten o'clock on a Saturday night and you shouldn't be doing research."

"Mmm-hmmm," she said noncommittally, pulling the whole stack into her arms and lugging it away from the table. She carried it into the living room, trying to decide where to put it, then spied a basket where she often kept journals. Dumping the whole in the container, she shoved it under a table, then turned to her home-invading partner.

"Why are you here, Booth?" she asked waspishly. "It is Saturday night, after all."

His smile didn't falter. "Can't a guy just visit his partner?" He started plunking containers out on the table as she automatically moved for her placemats and napkins, Booth's chopsticks and hers-- she wouldn't let him take the disposable ones from the shop, and he always made a big show of hand washing the "manly" chopsticks emblazoned with roosters she'd bought him half as a joke.

"Wine or beer?" she asked as she bent into the fridge, hand automatically reaching even as he said "beer."

Steeling herself, she pasted a smile on her face and turned back to the table, juggling their things. She'd long since stopped bringing out plates-- four years of partnership and bleeding on one another left little room for squeamishness about bodily fluids-- and certainly both had stolen food from the other's hand, just to annoy the other.

"Thanks, Bones," he said, taking the beers and setting them down as she unloaded the placemats, chopsticks and hot sauce. She grabbed the container of spring rolls as well as some sauce, then took the beer after Booth cracked it for her.

She tried to make small talk, asked him about the hockey game he played in two nights prior while she taught her undergraduate seminar, and tried to listen as he discussed his plans for Parker tomorrow-- but her heart wasn't in it. For the first time, she would admit to herself that she was depressed.

Booth noticed when she failed to argue with him about the last bits of the mee krab.

"What's got you so grumpy, Bones?"

She shook her head. She was _not_ going to go into it with her partner, not now, while she still hadn't decided what she was going to do. "Just ... grumpy," she said, hoping he'd leave it at that. She ducked her head back into the container of dumplings as she said "... no particular reason." She didn't like to look at him when she lied.

"Uh-huh," he said, not convinced. She'd been depressed ever since she started this research, and she was tired of it-- but she'd committed to the idea of what she was doing, and Temperance Brennan wasn't a quitter. Booth, thankfully, didn't seem to be in the mood to press her tonight.

Just then, her phone rang, the ringtone she'd assigned to her father. Somewhat alarmed that he would be calling so late, she leapt up, saying "sorry, that's my father, I'd better take that," as she snatched up the phone. Booth just nodded and scrabbled his chopsticks in the pad thai container.

"Dad," she said, walking out of the room and down the hall toward her bedroom. It turned out he was calling last-minute to see if she wanted to go down to see Russ and the girls in the morning-- there was no other urgency. She agreed without hesitation--she could use the distraction. "It will be nice to see them," she said, meaning it. She hadn't seen Russ in a while, Amy's girls were well-mannered, and Hallie's CF was responding nicely to treatment. They exchanged a few details, agreed on a meeting time, and she rang off with a smile-- only to have it falter when she walked back into the living room to see Booth sitting on her couch, the basket of research materials next to him on the cushions-- his hands in the literal cookie jar.

He had a look of shock on his face when she came back into the room. "What ... what's all this ... stuff, Bones?" he asked, gesturing at the papers and laboratory results.

"What it looks like," she responded automatically, suppressing a sigh. "Fertility research, information about various artificial insemination methods, my fertility test results."

He literally gaped at her. "You ... you don't want kids," he stammered.

She supposed it was a surprise, but she still found herself hurt by his reaction. "I changed my mind," she said.

"But ... but ... why? I mean, you're not the maternal type, Bones..." he began.

Her eyes welled, all unwilling. She wasn't even taking fertility hormones yet and she was over-emotional. What a disaster-- what was she going to be like if she actually went through with it? "I just did, alright?" she asked, voice choked as she turned to the table and cleared the now-empty boxes. "And you shouldn't be going through people's possessions," she snapped.

"You're going to have a baby?" he asked, seemingly stuck on the idea.

She responded, her back still to him as she threw things away. "I'm not pregnant yet. I haven't even chosen a conception method, much less a sperm donor. It's far from a sure thing at this point."

"But ... why?" he asked all over again.

She whirled on him, eyes still welling tears. "Is the idea of my being a mother so ridiculous, Booth? Am I so unqualified that you're struck dumb by the very idea? Trust me, it is not a decision I take lightly. But I ... I just want to. I ... Andy ... and Parker's an engaging young boy ... and the children in the science club ... and just ... well, I do."

"Were you planning on telling me?" he asked, sounding hurt.

"Of course," she said. "But as I said, I haven't yet decided if much less how to try to conceive, or what donor genetic material to use."

"Donor genetic material?" he said, incredulously. "Way to kill the romance, Bones."

Her voice cracked as she responded. "What romance? Do you see a sexual partner around here, Booth? I don't. I'm not in a long term relationship, I'm not getting any younger, and I am both financially and professionally secure enough to make accommodations for a child should I decide to conceive after I've finished weighing my options."

He shook his head, looking annoyed. "Bones ... you don't just ... I mean, you can't drop the kid off at day care and go chasing down criminals if there's no one else around to take care of it if something happens to you."

She snarled, his assumptions infuriating her. "Do you think I'm that stupid? Of course I understand that, Booth. Were I to actually be able to conceive and carry to term I would necessarily cut back my time in the field or eliminate it altogether-- whatever was necessary to provide a child with the security it needs. Do you think I'm so reckless as to forget my own experiences, so narrowly focused that I would risk leaving a child alone in the world, especially one I brought into it?"

She wrapped her arms around herself, her voice rising as she continued to yell.

"I'm sorry you think I'd make a poor mother-- I was hoping you would actually agree with my decision, since you've been so adamant that I've been wrong in the past." She wiped angry tears from her face as she glared at him. "But apparently that's not the case."

He stood slowly, the look of shock on his face fading, and a look of concern quickly replacing it. "Bones, no ... just ... it's kind of a shock, that's all. But clearly you've thought a lot about it," he said, walking toward her. "I think you'd make a great mom, I'm just ... kind of surprised ... and I ...." He trailed off, sighing as he stopped to stand in front of her, his expression unreadable in the shadows cast by the low lit lamps in her living room. "Sorry," he mumbled. "But ... single parenthood's not all it's cracked up to be, Bones. Why now?"

She hugged herself tighter. "Like I said. I'm not getting any younger, and I've concluded that with my luck choosing men I'd be better off being a single parent regardless. It would be too disruptive to a child for me to attempt to also find a long-term romantic partner given my track record, and I've come to believe that I am more interested in a child than finding some hypothetical male who would be a suitable father."

He looked shocked all over again. "What? You're going to have a kid _and_ be an old maid?"

She nodded, biting her lip and looking away before turning again and picking up the remaining things on the table. "Don't act so surprised, Booth. You yourself have often pointed out my inability to interact with suitable males in non-professional settings."

"Bones," he said, coming behind her to take her by the elbow and turn her to look at him. "Come on, now. Don't be like that."

"Why not?" she said, not bothering to mask the bitterness she felt. "There simply isn't some special someone out there for everyone, Booth, no matter what you think-- and it doesn't change my desire for a child, for someone to pass on the things I ... love ... to. There's no reason to wait, and many reasons not to-- I become less fertile each year, and the next two to three years will be the end of my peak fertility range. The process of fertilization and conception under any of the possible methods can be lengthy, with no guarantee of success."

She rued the emotionality that was making her say all these things she could normally filter.

As usual, he was standing right in her space, the smell and bulk and warmth of him invading her senses. She wished the damnable man didn't present the living, breathing example of all the things she didn't have. She swallowed, berating herself for being too weak to make him let go-- even when she was facing making a decision that _couldn't_ involve him, she wanted him involved.

Frowning, he said, "So you're just going to look through some sperm donor catalogue until you find something you like and order it up? And then pump yourself full of hormones and blow wads of cash with no guarantee that you'll even get pregnant?"

"Basically," she sighed, wondering why he was having such a hard time with it all, and then realizing. "Don't worry, Booth. I shall endeavor to hire a fully-qualified forensic anthropologist to replace Zack so that in the event I am able to conceive neither you nor the Bureau would be inconvenienced by my taking a maternity leave or sabbatical. I wouldn't leave you in the lurch."

Booth rubbed his hand over his hair, staring at her. "No... that's not ... it's just ... why've you got to do everything the hard way, Bones? I mean, look, it's great you want to have a kid, and really, I do think you'd make a great mom, but you're making a big decision, and all this medical-science-y stuff about getting pregnant is a big investment." He started to say something, his face shifting, then decided against it.

She stepped back a pace as he finished speaking. "So you're telling me you don't think I should do it?" She hated how wounded she sounded.

"No," he said, blowing a breath out through his lips and looking increasingly agitated as he reached forward again and grabbed her arm to prevent her from backing further away. "I'm just saying maybe you should think some more about trying the old fashioned way before you go in, in vitro guns blazing." His eyes were dark and concerned as he said it, as if he were deeply worried about her making a mistake-- as if she wasn't well aware of the problems.

"With whom should I try?" she said, snapping. "I'm single, if you haven't noted it already. And I'm hardly going to attempt to conceive a child with any male that might come along. Physically strong, intellectually superior, emotionally stable and ideally well-structured and attractive males who make suitable fathers are not thick on the ground, Booth, much less ones I would find myself attracted to enough to attempt to conceive with-- the only '_sperm donor_' I know who meets those criteria would be _you_, and we both know damned well that's not going to happen-- and in any event you're assuming I would be willing to conceive naturally with someone who would not be there long-term for the child."

A deep silence fell as she heard the words leave her mouth. Her mouth dry, she looked at him, the dawning realization of _why_ she'd been so reluctant to commit to one of the medical processes she'd been researching now abundantly clear-- she'd long been stifling her attraction and feelings for him, but had never dared consciously think what it might mean to conceive a child with him. Sex, making love, whatever he called it—she imagined that all the time. It was the thoughts of long term involvement she buried.

The emergence of her suppressed desire that Booth father her child, assist her with raising it, '_try it the old fashioned way_,' as he described it-- well, yet again this evening she'd reacted without a filter in place between her brain and her mouth. She would never have consciously asked her partner for what she'd just said-- they were friends, he already had a child and responsibilities to him with all the additional complications of not being married, and in any event there was that line of his. Which she'd just obliterated-- completely.

"I ... I ..." she said, speechless, staring at him. "That didn't ... I didn't ..." she stammered. He looked flabbergasted as her own jaw worked, no sound coming out. She looked down at his hand on her arm, his hold on her like an anchor as she began to shut down at the realization that she'd just ruined ... everything. When he let go, as he inevitably would after such a remark, she would drown.

"I ... I wouldn't ask that of you," she finally mumbled, looking anywhere but at him. His hand still held her arm, and she startled a bit when his other hand came to her chin, tugging until she looked at him.

Something shifted in his expression-- his shocked look of earlier, his concerned look from not long before, his agitation all yielded to _something_—that _something_ she'd seen before and willed herself not to think about, because he'd never said anything about whatever it meant-- she expected she probably had something akin to the same look on her face. Interest. Confusion. Attraction. Complete terror. His liquid brown eyes darkened, the planes of his face seeming even more sculpted in the shadows cast by the light. He inhaled deeply and spoke.

"You can't assume you know the answer if you don't ask, Bones," he said, his voice husky.

She swallowed, her mouth turned to sawdust. His eyes shaded even deeper, his hand on her chin shaking slightly.

"Booth ... would you father a child with me?"


	50. He Likes Blondes

_**Spoilers for S4's The Princess and the Pear. Because I didn't care for the end scene—not at all.

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**_

**He Likes Blondes**

"It's open," I hear him call, only to walk in to see the two of them doing ... something-- probably one of those adjustments of hers. He sees nothing wrong with the fact that I'm there-- or that I've walked in on them while she's got him in a position I hear some people would pay big money to see. He doesn't seem to react one way or the other as I tell him I brought him some chili. But she-- her eyes widen ever-so-slightly before she looks down and away. She's not happy I'm there, but she's not mad at me. But she's mad about something, and I've already seen her mad-- I don't want to be anywhere near her when she goes off. That woman is dangerous.

I stammer out that I've got to go, but she's saying it too without looking at either of us-- by the time I've reached his door and shut it behind me, with his faint, querying "Nobody's staying?" behind me, she's already booked it halfway down the stairs. After these last two cases, I find it's _her_ I'm more curious of. As if he and I were going to do more than talk about work anyway what with him dropping the "Peyton" and going back to "Perotta," not to mention that whole drugged-up "_silky_ _black hair and soft skin_" thing. Puh-leeze—a girl knows when she's beat—that chili was just a last gasp to salvage my pride. So I hustled down after her, calling "Dr. Brennan!" as she was already halfway down the street toward her car.

She stopped warily before turning to look at me. Warily? This is the woman who broke the cheekbone of the Gravedigger with a briefcase and whaled the hell out of as close to a knight as we get anymore, chainmail and all, beating him down with his own sword, for crying out loud. And she's wary of me? Guess I didn't impress her as much as I'd hoped.

"Yes, Agent Perotta?" she asks, her voice low. The woman does the phrase husky-voiced alto proud. Special Agent Silky Hair should add _that_ to his list.

I'd better make this good if I'm going to try to get more of a read on her. "Um, I ... I appreciated the chance to work with you again and wanted to thank you for asking for my assistance."

She stands there a moment, assessing. I feel like squirming under that stare of hers, but squash the urge to dance in place like a five year old. I'm a damned Special Agent, already. I expect her to say something efficient like she did earlier, but she says "Well, you did more than a competent job. The Bureau should consider you an asset."

I got all warm and fuzzy-- from her, that's a big sloppy kiss. But she falls quiet again and doesn't offer to continue the conversation. Okay... ball's in my court. "I'm sorry if I interrupted you," I tried. "I'm sure Agent Booth's medicated state will require further monitoring."

Her face shifted. "No," she replied. "He said he was fine." She finished crossing the street to her car, parked just opposite mine. "I don't want to bother him further tonight ... but ... I'm sure ... he'd be happy to see you."

She, however, did not sound happy to say that-- and as she said it, she gave me this grimace that wasn't a smile, not at all, though I'll give her an A+ for effort. She turned to unlock her car, and boy am I lucky I have good hearing. "He likes blondes," she said under her breath as she stood with her back to me.

Oh. Looks like _both_ of them have no idea what the other one thinks. That's more than a little bit twisted. Does their therapist know?

I was debating whether to say something or whether I would embarrass her-- I suddenly realized it _was_ possible to embarrass her about some things. Like how she felt about Booth-- or what she thought he felt (or didn't) about her. Before I decided, her phone rang. I stood by the side of my car, unabashedly listening as she stood with her back to me.

"Hey. No ... I could ... but ... are you sure? I don't want to bother you and ..."

She sounded completely different talking to him-- it had to be him-- than I'd ever heard her speak around me.

"Okay," she said softly. "Be back up in a moment."

I quickly got into my car, so she wouldn't think I'd been intentionally eavesdropping. She had a tentative look on her face, this scary-smart woman who could kick the snot out of me and then would analyze the wound placement just to make sure she'd landed each blow where she'd aimed.

What the hell, I decided. It would be my good deed for the day.

"Dr. Brennan?" I called, lowering my window.

She came over and nodded, head tipped to the side as she waited.

"I think he likes brunettes more."

I looked away then, starting the car and backing up while studiously not looking at her until I'd pulled out of the space and could look in the side mirror. She stood on the sidewalk, pulled a strand of her hair between her fingers and held it up to the streetlight before her. Shaking her head, she turned and went in.


	51. Silky Black, No Wait, Brown Hair

_**A/N:**_

_**Spoilers, a missing end scene, and an explanation for that "Silky black hair" comment from The Princess and the Pear. Booth's POV.**_

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**Silky Black, No Wait, Brown Hair**

"Don't you trust me?"

"Let's not make it about trust."

"Well, it's a fact. A fact isn't what you make of it, it just is. You ready?"

"Definitely not ready now, thanks."

Oooh. Warm Bones breasts on my back. That feels good. Gotta say I was mostly jus' sayin' no to see if she wouldn't push me on it a little. She's so cute when she's all sassy and cranky n' Bones n'stuff.

Damn, these drugs'r makin' me sound drunk in m'own head, all floaty n'stuff, but I gotta stop taking so many, that blondie there didn't keep my Bones fr'm gettin' run off the road. With frickin' _Sweets_ fer chrissakes. Thank God Bones is kickass. Wouldv'e paid money to see her gettin' all warrior babe. Pref'rbly in one of those fur bikini thingies all the women on the covers of all those books in th'geek section of th'bookstore seem to wear. Not that I look. Just passin' by thas' all, but I mean, fur bikinis, well, they catch a man's eye. Mmm. Bones in a bikini. But I 'spose I should give her a gun 'f she's gonna have knights runnin' her off the road. Oh, standing sucks, but Bones's touching me so hey, it's worth it. Oops, pants're fallin' down, better not flash Bones, well, I'd love to but... hunh? Knocking? Who's knocking?

"Oh, God, it's open!" Who's coming to see me when Bones is already … "Whoa!"

Hey! Wow! She did it again and... oh, it's blondie. Why's she look all surprised like we're doin' the mambo or something, not like I wouldn't but still? Bones's just givin' me an adjustment, though not the kind of adjustment I really want but hey, I'll take what he can get.

What's blondie babbling about? Bones's saying she was just leaving? What? Chili? I love chili. Hope blondie made it all veggie though, no way am I gonna convince Bones to have any if it's all meat and stuff, an' she prob'ly didn't have supper yet, never does, I swear one of these days I'm gonna set her phone to keep naggin' her to eat when I'm not around.

"Are you alright?" blondie asks, looking all concerned at me. Not concerned to keep Bones from getting swung at by a sword, though. What th'hell 're they teachin' rookies these days? Oughta be a special section at Quantico on protectin' my Bones. Wait, no, bad idea. Thas' my job. They start teachin' other people to do it and ... bad, everyone else'll be after workin' with my Bones. _My_ Bones. She's so pretty and smart and Bones. Can't be havin' other agents, 'specially guys, God that Sully thing sucked, workin' with my Bones. Gotta do those exercises the doc said an' get those back muscles in shape. Yoga too, though yuck on the yoga. But doc said it'll make it get stronger n' _hey_, _ooh_, Bones likes yoga, maybe I can make her go with me and then she can adjust my poses and yeah. Yoga. Cool.

"He's fine now." What? She's letting go? No, no, no, Bones you stay put right there. If I move she's gonna stop touchin' me an' that'll suck.

"I gotta tell you I'm kinda afraid to move." Huh? No, that's not what I meant to say. I meant to say I think I'm gonna need another, b'cause Bones pushing those mmm Bones curves into my back, well, oh yeah.

Hey, ooh? M'back still feels good. That Bones, she's so awesome and pretty and what? The two of them are fightin' about who's gonna leave? What? Why? Why's Bones leavin'? I told her not to worry 'bout blondie. She doesn't have silky black, no wait, _brown_, these drugs're makin' all the colors seem funky too, _brown_ hair and soft skin and Bones smells _oooh_ like Bones and blondie's just got some, well, _not Bones_ somethin' on.

"Great, now, now, nobody's staying? Hello?"

Hey, my back does feel better. "Bones, hey, m'back does feel better."

Wha', why's she not answerin' me, especially when I tell her she's right? I love that smile she gets when I do that. That's right, she left. Right, left, hey, that's kinda funny, that linguistic juxtaposition and stuff. Shit, where's the phone? Oof. Don't move too fast, Seeley boy, okay, got the phone, hit the speed dial 'cuz she's my number one on my speed dial and just number one in everything and what was that Blondie song with the chorus bit about "Number One?"

"Booth?" Ooh. Love her voice. When's she gonna call me Seeley, though?

"Bones! Why'd you book it outta here so fast?" Atta boy, Seeley. Concentrate on normal sentences.

"I ... I thought you were expecting Agent Perotta."

Bones, Bones, Bones. Hey, cool, she's jealous. But no, s'bad 'f she's jealous that'll mean she thinks ... well, I dunno what she thinks half the time ... but it's bad if she thinks she's being jealous n' she'll just run an' I can't run after her right now an' crap, I gotta get her back up here.

"What? No. She left right after you."

What's gonna make Bones come back, maybe a little wheedlin'-- I mean I'm on the phone I can't give her the smile. Crap. She always gives in to the smile. I need a video phone so I can give her the smile all the time. Like on the Jetsons or something.

"I don' like chili anyway. I thought you were gonna make me some mac 'n cheese?"

She gets so bossy when she's takin' care of me, it's so sassy and cute and the only thing I wanna be alone with more than Bones' mac n' cheese is Bones except _ooh, hey_, maybe Bones _and_ her mac n' cheese although maybe that's kinky. Maybe not, though. Bet Bones has a bit of a perv swerve.

"Are you sure?"

Oh, for cryin' out loud.

"Bones ... get your cute ass back up here."

Oh, shit. Frickin' drugs. Not that her ass isn't cute, I mean, it's frickin' _fantastic_, but I can't go saying stuff like that out loud...

"How many painkillers did you take?"

Oh, good, an out.

"A lot--a lot a lot. I don't think I should be left alone right now, I might trip over somethin' and my depth percep-shuns' all off..."

Yeah, Seeley, work the woozy-on-drugs angle.

"You seemed to be better ..." she said, hesitantly. Like she thinks blondie's still here.

"C'mon, Bones, I'm hungry and I really, really hate chili and all the rest of my food's either on the bottom shelf of my fridge or not at waist level and you don't want me bending or lifting quite yet, right? Doctor said not to."

Ooh, _hey_, that was a good one. Logical _and_ following the doctor's directions. Gotta file that approach away.

"Fine..." she sighs, pretending to be cranky. Cranky is good. Jealous and freaking out? Not good. Ornery Bones's much better. One of these days I gotta get her riled up enough so she'll just kiss me back when I kiss her. Or kick my ass, because at least she'd be touchin' my ass. But kissin's much better. Mmm. Kissin' Bones. Wait. Concentrate on the damned conversation.

"Door's open. C'mon up ... an' ... lock the door after you?"

Yeah! Smooth, Seeley! That last bit was _super-smooth_.

I can hear her smiling through the phone. "Fine, be right up."

"Cool. See you soon."

Cool. Love Bones, she's so pretty, an' now I get to watch her make me mac n' cheese and her bite her lip while she measures stuff out and get to see that soft skin and that silky black-- _brown_! what the crap is wrong with me, _brown_!-- hair of hers. Yeah. Silky brown hair. Silky Bones hair. Mmmm. Bones. And Vicodin. But Bones's better than Vicodin. Way better-- especially that silky brown hair of hers. And that fantastic ass. But that silky _brown_ hair and soft skin, ooh.

"Ooh, hey, Bones."

She's smilin' at me as she comes back in and locks up. Love that smile of hers. And that silky brown hair and soft skin. Mmm. Bones.


	52. Five Minutes, Two Thousand Words

Many thanks to MickeyBoggs for her help on this one.

* * *

**Five Minutes, Two Thousand Words**

The things I do for my partner, I thought to myself, as I stood on Angela's doorstep, ringing her doorbell for what felt like the fiftieth time. She wasn't answering her phone, either. Finally, I decided what the hell, it was Angela, and I had other stuff I had to do with my day. I shoved the file under my arm, picked the lock, and let myself in.

"Niiiiiiccce" I whistled to myself. Squint artists must be making nice money these days-- Angela had a really sweet condo.

"Angela!" I shouted, heading down the hall and peeking into the rooms on the sides as I went. High ceilings, lots of windows, typical artist's place, not that I'd really know except for the basics. But lots of the same kind of modern furniture she had in her office, lots of her paintings and what looked like other peoples' too-- more of that mostly-abstract stuff I can't understand enough to know if I like it or not.

"Ange!" I yelled again.

"In back!" I finally heard. Heading the rest of the way down the hall, there was some music off to my right. Following it, I ended up in a short hallway to what had to be her studio-- an enormous room reeking of paint and turpentine and sawdust, with windows all around and what looked like easily four dozen paintings all over the place. The paintings were in different stages so far as I knew, hanging on walls or standing on easels or just stacked up against the wall.

"Hey, studly," she said, turning to greet me, decked out in paint, overalls and a bra that left nothing to the imagination. What is it with female squints trying to embarrass me?

I shook my head. "You knew I was coming and decided a pink pushup bra was the best way to greet me?" I asked.

She just shot me a saucy grin. "I happen to agree with Bren that your ideas of modesty are too old-fashioned. Plus, I didn't want to ruin a shirt."

"Thus says the woman who got caught on tape doing it with the bugman in the Egyptian exhibit."

She just grinned again. "The one and only." She nodded at the file under my arm. "Is that the one Bren needs me to sign?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Says there was something about the reconstruction report that didn't quite jive and wanted you to look it over again just to be sure."

She snorted. "Bren did _not_ say it didn't jive."

"No-- I think she said that the data were anomalous compared with the observable angles of the zygomatic processes."

Angela just nodded. "Okay. Cheekbones are hinky." She looked around, then down at herself, and stuffed the file under her arm. "I've got to get this paint off my arms and go check this stuff on my laptop. I won't be more than fifteen minutes, tops." She shot me a grin, then pointed back down the corridor where I came in. "The kitchen's on the other side of that hallway, hungry man. There's some coffee in the pot, and help yourself to whatever's in the fridge or the cabinets. I think I have some brown sugar and cinnamon pop-tarts."

I felt myself grinning. I try not to keep them in the house because Becs always lays into me about letting Parks eat sugary foods, but pop-tarts are one of the great food groups-- right up there with pizza and french fries. "You sure know how to sweet-talk a guy, Angela."

She just bubbled a laugh, then moved a few things down off the ledge of her easel onto the table next to it. "Be back soon, Special Agent Sweet Tooth," she teased, then bounced off.

I was thinking about the coffee but the chance to poke around Angela's studio was interesting, too. I knew she still painted, even before Roxie was back in the picture, but Bones said it was an intermittent thing-- sometimes she was on, and sometimes she was off as far as her inspiration. The things she had in her office were interesting-- sometimes disturbing-- but they always drew the eye. "Raw," is what Bones called it, and I'd have thought it was an insult except that Cam nodded and the two of them started going on about "patent emotionality" and "lyrical abstraction and abstract expressionism" and other stuff about brushes and palette knives-- I didn't quite know Cam had it in her, but hey, she did live in Manhattan another ten years after I left. Plenty of chances for her to get interested in art.

I didn't know enough about any of it to judge Angela's paintings objectively-- but I liked them, despite the fact that some of them were so abstract you couldn't always tell if there were actual figures in there. She seemed to paint across the whole range-- from really abstract to almost photographic in detail-- I tended to like the ones that were kind of abstract, but you could still figure out who it was or what kind of person they were if you thought about it a little. I didn't know if in the art world her stuff would be considered good-- certainly, she never talked about showing her own things, though I knew Bones had been nagging her about some collection of paintings she'd just finished from a conversation I'd walked in on.

I could get coffee later-- I'd never been to Angela's place before, and who knew when I'd be back. I wouldn't get a chance to get inside an artist's head like this anytime soon.

The one on her easel, the one she'd been working on, was really abstract and it looked like she'd only just started. It was all rusty swirls and slashes of paint, browns and reds and dull coppers with big splashed lines of black-- pretty disturbing, though who knew how it would end up. It actually started to raise the hair on the back of my neck, so I decided I'd do better to look somewhere else.

I made my way around the room. Half-finished pictures of Zack-- all abandoned, the faces of the canvases stacked toward the wall-- like she didn't want to be reminded. The ones on the walls tended toward those semi-abstract ones that I liked, and I could see some of them were variations on the one she'd just put up in Bones' office. I wondered if she was doing a series, or if these were just, well, I don't know. Would you basically throw out a canvas like that?

There were some more realistic portraits of Roxie, some of Jack, a wild ground level view of the dahlia beds at the lab in the fall, and a couple of abstracts that did seem to be part of a series-- they were different patterns and shapes, but all in the same group of colors-- muted blues, greens, and yellows, with a little of that greeny-white the sky gets sometimes right before a big storm.

I was suddenly glad Bones sent me over here and that I now had the chance to poke around-- I mean, I would come over anyway; she did have a book tour to pack for, and her plane left right before supper. It wasn't her fault how long it took to wrap this case up, and God knows we were up until two finishing our end of things before she discovered the glitch between her own findings and Angela's. She'd looked so pooped at the idea of going in to the lab that I told her to just call Ange and I'd play messenger-boy while she packed, and the smile that lit her face was worth all the pain in the butt that it was when I had laundry to do and food to buy-- all the crap I never had time for when people were busy getting killed all the time. But then again, pretty much anything would be worth it if it would just get me one of those smiles of hers.

There was a table halfway across one of the walls full of photos-- just photos of people and places and things. They weren't artsy the same way I've seen arty photographs-- I figured they must be a way for Angela to capture ideas. Looking more closely, though, I saw there were at least a dozen pictures of Bones in various moods-- mad, thoughtful, pensive, laughing-- that latter one was the two of us from about six months ago when I was giving her a particularly hard time about something and she'd been poking me back to tickle me in retaliation.

"Angela, you photo stalker," I said to myself, then kept looking around.

I was almost the full circuit of the room when I got to a stack of larger canvasses set on the floor. The front one was a somewhat abstract reclining nude of herself that Angela'd painted-- interesting, because it wasn't sympathetic. She'd made herself pretty jagged-edged, and I wondered how old or new it was-- she wasn't really happy with who she was at that moment, whenever it was. Pulling it forward, I looked at the second and saw it was a more abstract version of Bones' profile from the photo of the two of us laughing, though how I knew it was Bones when it was just dark hair and a small amount of white skin I don't know. But I guess that's what they meant by "raw--" the fact that the emotion was right there to suck you in. It wasn't finished, this one-- there was a lot of white space around, and it looked like she was planning on doing more to Bones' profile, but clearly it was something she hadn't worked on for a bit, since it had to have been dry for her to have stacked it here.

I flipped through some more-- all half-finished pictures of Bones, some more realistic, some more abstract, some practically formless, just colors and suggestions of the contrast between her eyes, skin and hair. It was a real treasure trove, if you were someone obsessed with watching the slight flash of her moods before she suppressed it. Looks like I wasn't the only once fascinated with those quick flickers before she put on her calm face. I could have stood there all day looking at each one of them, but there was a long one at the back I was really curious about, since everything else after that self-portrait had been Bones.

Bending, I let the canvasses I'd already looked at lean against my legs as I flipped toward the last painting. Angela really knew Bones-- not all the moods I'd ever seen my partner display were here, and I had a feeling I probably saw those moods more than Angela did-- but she had a lot of it there, and no wonder, they'd known each other a long time, though neither one of them really talked about how they'd first met. They were kind of an odd couple, almost as much as me and Bones. But she did that, Bones did-- attracted attention from people who you wouldn't normally think would be friends with her. Even Sweets was crushing on Bones these days, though no wonder if she'd gone all Xena Warrior Princess during that fight with that knight. Bones was damned hot when she was kicking ass, as much as that whole situation practically gave me a heart attack.

And then I looked at the last painting, the long tall one I'd wanted to see-- and almost wished that I hadn't. It was far more abstract than the others, but ... it was Bones, unmistakably, at least to me. And I should know, God knew I spent enough time watching her.

I was finding it hard to breathe around the lump that arose as I looked at the canvas.

"That was when you were dead, and before ... Zack." came Angela's voice from behind me. "She slept at the lab practically every night. I couldn't make her go home."

I turned enough to look at her-- her face was serious as she looked back at me, no trace of the blithe flirty Angela she'd been when I came in. Not that I'd be if I was remembering what she'd painted.

I huffed a breath. "That ... that's worse than when we found out about her mom and her family," I said, regarding the painted figure on the canvas on me.

Bones always curled up on herself as she slept when she was upset-- the tighter the ball, the more upset she was. But it wasn't just the fetal curl that gave away how badly off she was-- she spent so much time when she was awake trying to hide her emotions that when she slept they just ... leaked from her. I remembered finding her asleep on her couch after we got back from McVicker's pig farm that second time-- after he'd lied to her about running off with her mom, and she knew he was lying but it tore her apart anyway. She was a literal ball of misery-- huddled up under her throw so tight on herself that I thought fleetingly that I'd be hard pressed to make her uncurl if she wasn't inclined to a cooperate.

This was worse. Much worse. Angela'd painted it so it was really abstract-- you had to know Bones to know it was her. But I could tell it was finished, as rough as all the swirls and slashes of paint were. And it was ... black. Literally and figuratively.

There were streaks and swirls and huge splotches of paint-- in all different shades of black. I hadn't known until then that there were so many versions of darkness-- red, greenish, purple, one even shot through with a sickening yellow. It was like a negative rainbow, all surrounding a tiny, dimmed ball. Bones, huddled so tightly that it was like she wanted to just implode on herself.

The painting pushed at me, slapped me with the force of it. It pulled at me, too-- it was like a whirlpool of darkness with Bones at the bottom. Of necessity, it was a canvas, a flat surface-- but somehow with the slashes and circles and jagged layers of paint, Angela made it clear that it was less of a whirlpool and more of an abyss.

That lump in my throat that was shock when I first saw the painting turned into nausea, so strong I clapped my hand over my mouth and surged away to find a bucket to heave into. There was a clatter of wooden frames hitting the floor as I lost my breakfast into the metal bucket Ange had standing under her primary easel, the smell of the puke mixing poorly with the paint and turpentine and other chemical fumes.

I heaved again, squatting over the bucket until I was pretty sure I was done.

"Here," Angela said, a bottle of water coming into view.

"Thanks," I wheezed, taking it and gargling some of it before spitting into the bucket. I repeated the action, then pushed up to standing. Angela's back was to me as she flipped through some canvasses in an alcove I hadn't noticed before, then pulled out another one.

It wasn't close to finished-- but again, it was Bones. If the one I'd just looked at could have been titled Despair or Misery, this one was Fear, maybe Terror. And I recognized it immediately, even though I wasn't there when it happened-- to me, this time. But I'd been there before-- when it was her.

"I ... when she was gone I..."

She nodded as we both looked at the muddy reds, lightning-bolt jagged slashes of sickening yellows and a swirl of furious activity, radiating from a tall figure almost too bright to look at, even though it was just paint. It reached out and grabbed you by the throat. "She was every bit as ready to kill someone as you were when she was gone, Booth."

I nodded, looked at the one she held out, then walked back to look at the one I'd just reacted so violently to. Shuddering, I turned back to Angela.

"I don't know why you haven't said something, Booth-- God knows I see how you look at her, and I've tried to stay out of it as much as it kills me, but whatever your reasons-- she's not going to say something first. She just isn't. She's my sassy straightforward Bren when it doesn't matter that much but-- Booth, you know this-- she clams up as soon as something means anything significant to her."

I was feeling dumbstruck, still, and who knew what the look on my face was-- but Angela put Bones' Gravedigger painting aside and looked at me gravely. "If you haven't said something because you think you don't know how she feels, well-- now you do."

I nodded, still searching for words. She handed me the folder that brought me there in the first place. "It was a data transcription error, I've fixed it and confirmed that the data lines up with Bren's findings. You can sign off on it and close this thing out now."

I took it and looked at my watch. I'd only been there twenty minutes, we'd only been talking for five but-- those two paintings, Angela's short explanations. I wouldn't have been surprised if you told me I'd been there a week, there was so much packed into such a short time.

"Thanks, Angela," I said, debating what else to say.

She looked at me a long moment, and I realized that it was her squint look-- she had a way of looking through you at something just like the rest of them did. Nodding, she turned me around and shoved me toward the door of her studio. "Get back to work, Hot Stuff." She had a smile on her face when I turned back to look at her, but she only said, "Now."

Funny how only five minutes can change five years, and two pictures are worth more than two thousand words. I gave her a nod and headed out. Bones' plane didn't leave for another five hours-- I was pretty sure I had time for the two thousand words that occurred to me on seeing those paintings in the last five minutes.


	53. One Bullet

_**A post "Hero in the Hold" scene we'll never see, though I don't think it's out of character. Extremely dark, but no actual violence.**_

_**

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**_**One Bullet**_**  
**_

"Doctor Hodgins?"

I turned at the sound of her voice-- husky, low and as authoritative as she always was.

"Yes, Dr. B.?"

I gave her my full attention-- not that I don't always, but I knew damned well I was skating on thin ice around everyone these days, especially her. So far, I'd been lucky. Suspended from field work without supervision from someone else at the lab, required to sign evidence in and out on a daily basis, security privileges to the evidence lockers revoked-- all for a probationary period. They could have fired me, ruined my academic and professional reputation, pushed me out of working altogether-- but they didn't, though they knew that my job was far more important to me than how much money I had. The job wasn't a vocation-- it was an avocation, one I desperately needed to fulfill. Which was why I was in the lab on a Saturday-- I needed the solace of knowing I was still allowed to work here, even if the work today was for the museum and not for a case.

She held up an untagged evidence bag that contained a 9 millimeter handgun, her face calm and her voice level. A calm Dr. B. was a good thing. While Booth was gone, she had that same expression on her face from when he was taken by those thugs down in West Virginia, and when that woman shot Booth-- but now she was back to her usual efficient brilliance, and we'd returned to the crime-fighting thing I liked best. It didn't surprise me that she was in the lab too-- she always had a backlog of museum and case consultations from other institutes to work on. I never understood how she got everything done, there weren't enough hours in the day. But that was why she was Dr. B. and no one else was-- she could do anything she set her mind to.

"I need a full analysis on this weapon-- everything you can give me-- particulates, registration, bullet dynamics, anything and everything. It's critical that I know who it belongs to and how it was used as soon as possible."

"Got it, Dr. B.," I said, taking the bag from her hand carefully. The clip was still in but the safety was engaged-- it was actually important that the magazine stayed as it was when the weapon was found, since even the number of bullets and their position in the clip could yield important evidence. "Is there an evidence slip?"

She shook her head. "I don't think that's necessary," she said, voice and expression utterly serious as those eyes of her pierced me. I stifled the urge to cringe-- she'd always been intense, but there was something especially intense about her today.

Instead of cringing under her sharp gaze, I said "Thank you, Dr. B.," and meant every word. That she'd decided I no longer needed to follow the probationary evidence protocol-- or at least if it was just the two of us-- it was more than a relief. Of anyone in the lab, it was her good opinion I valued most, and I'd come so close to losing it.

She just nodded before saying "I'll be in my office. Bring me your findings as soon as you've got them."

"I will," I said, then got to work.

An hour and a half later, I'd hit a dead end. I didn't relish my next task. Looking over to her office, I could see Dr. B. hard at work at her desk, papers open before her as she pounded away on her computer. Steeling myself, I replaced the gun on the evidence tray, the clip and one bullet I'd found inside laid alongside, and headed into her office.

"Dr. B.?" I said quietly, to get her attention.

She looked up at me, then at the evidence tray. "You have some findings for me?" That's Dr. B., always to the point.

"More like negative findings," I said. "This gun is a complete blank. It's a common military issue nine-millimeter, one of millions manufactured each year. It's unregistered. There's no serial number-- it's been removed by an expert, and everything I did to try to recover some of it didn't pan out. The gun grease is completely common-- it could have come from at least a dozen different manufacturers. There are no particulates or fingerprints of any kind-- it's totally clean. The barrel is perfectly smooth, too-- your bullet recognition technique would only reveal a smooth-sided slug. And as far as I can tell, it's never even been used, which makes it odd that there's only one bullet in there. You would think that the clip would be full."

She looked at me evenly, her calm and serious expression unwavering, her blue eyes piercing me. "So you're telling me that this gun is completely untraceable, has never been used, and if it were only used once, with this one bullet, no one would ever be able to tell who had used it, assuming they wore gloves of some kind?"

"That would be the only conclusion," I answered reluctantly. "I'm sorry I can't give you more."

She reached into her desk, pulled out some exam gloves, and snapped them on. "May I?" she asked, motioning for me to hand her the tray.

Taking it, she set the tray down on a clear space on her desk, regarding its contents for a long moment. Who knew what she saw or thought, even without the x-ray equipment, microscopes, machines, and chemicals I'd used to try to analyze the weapon and come up with some answer? With practiced assurance, she replaced the bullet in the clip, snapped the clip into place, and drew back the safety, the gun firm in her latex-clad hand.

With an utterly cold expression that froze me in place, she leveled it at me and said "Good. It's my gun, though as you've said, there's no way to possibly tell. So remember two things, Dr. Hodgins. Booth could have been killed, and I only need one bullet. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Dr. Brennan," I managed, my voice shaking.

"You can go, then," she said, sliding the safety back into place.

With every hair on my body standing on edge and cold sweat forming instantly, I turned my back and walked out the door.

When we were in with the Gravedigger, she said, "_If anyone could get away with murder, it would be us_." Now I knew it with certainty-- she'd just made me prove it to her. She'd killed Pam Nunan with only one shot. I had no doubt she would do it again, with one single, untraceable bullet.


	54. Midnight Promises

_**So—I think Brennan alone in the lab is a very different Brennan than the one we see in the daytime—witness her actions in the pilot when she's working with Cleo Eller with fire in her eyes and "The Man in The Fallout Shelter," the pensive looks she has when she's alone there. I think, with Booth's prodding since season one forward to talk to her Mom at her grave, and to say something for Ripley after "Finger in the Nest," that what she does here is entirely in character, especially given her passionate testimony in "The Girl in the Fridge." I hope you'll agree.

* * *

  
**_

Midnight promises

You don't know what drew you to the lab that late. It wasn't your usual practice when you had something you needed to discuss with the team-- you tended to interact with them during what you thought of as more normal working hours, since the Jeffersonian team's working hours in a whole class of their own. But you were disturbed by this case-- the exceptional brutality of the injuries done to the victim, the particulates data and other findings correlating with your conclusion as you worked up this profile that this murderer wasn't just sick-- he was evil.

Having finished the profile, your skin crawled-- the idea of going home straightaway to your bed was too disturbing to contemplate. At least bring your report to the lab for them to have first thing in the morning. Perhaps having made that one small addition to the evidence, you could banish some of the images of the violence done to the victims from your mind long enough to sleep a few hours. Someone would be there at dawn-- you could be sure that it would be well before nine am that someone started incorporating your part of the work into the emerging analysis.

You waved at the guard and headed in toward the lab. It was quiet, no wonder, it was closing on midnight. There was no one else in the halls as you made your way in to the Medico-Legal Lab, that cavernous glass and steel space with trees and machines, sterile and profane substances. It was a macrocosmic microcosm of all the horrible things people did to each other, and the wonderful ways people made order of things all over again.

The doors whisked open near-silently, and you reflected again how sometimes it seemed like you were entering a royal temple when you came into the lab. The guards and your card granted you access-- allowed you to participate in services, to interact with the acolyte lab techs and the team's priests and priestesses in their search for a solution. The seriousness with which everyone worked here, the hustle and bustle of the techs and the team during the day or during the rush of a case-- it was arcane to you as a lay-person, the latin and technical terms that tripped with ease of the tongues of these scientist-clergy. The gravitas of the place and the team's specialized knowledge never failed to impress you.

The way the light glinted off humming metal objects, the smell of antiseptic and feel of cold stainless steel against your back or under your hands-- well, you supposed Agent Booth wouldn't appreciate that you saw a parallel to Mass with incense and chanters and Holy Water and intercession with the saints and angels, but it was how you saw it. The team interceded with random fragments, assembled them into bits of information, lines of scripture-- which Dr. Brennan then wove together into a sermon, inspired to find the overarching message from the facts fed to her by her junior priests and priestesses. She delivered a message that made sense, used what you could know was true to take the team forward to the next step in acquiring more knowledge. You supposed that neither Dr. Brennan nor Agent Booth would be at all amused if you analogized her to a priestess or other religious figurehead, but really, it was what she did. What they did. What you did, too.

It was a weird symbiosis between the team and what you and Agent Booth did. What was it those old Roman priests did? Divination, telling the truth from rooting around in sacrificed animals' guts and weird fragmented things like the way the birds flew or how water or dirt looked? That was what the team did, at least from your perspective. Although-- you messed around in peoples' guts too, just by trying to get inside their heads. And now your guts were churning, since you'd gotten inside this bastard's head. It was sort of a combination of catholic rite and charismatic street preaching-- the team gave you the message, and you and Booth translated it for the masses. Lay clergy, of sorts. Lay juries, you hoped, in the end.

Your entry into the lab was slow and cautious-- there was no one up on the platform, but Dr. Brennan's office light was on. Right now, the lab echoed with the sounds of metal and glass creaking and clanging under wind and temperature changes, the whirr of fans and machines a faint background noise a counterpoitn to the large, silent cathedral of Science. You headed to Dr. Brennan's office, the most private, most royal chapel of all, only to find her not at her desk, but her things still clearly here.

Agent Booth often chided Dr. Brennan for spending so much time at the lab, and while you generally agreed that the woman totally needed to learn what the word "chill" meant in a big way, her attention to each case's victims was laudable. She was intense, Dr. Brennan was, but you were starting to come around to being as much of a fanboy of her as anyone else at the lab or Agent Booth. Well-- not Agent Booth, you weren't either head over heels or eating your heart out for Dr. Brennan. But you did find yourself endeared to her moments of awkwardness-- her intensity toward her work was compelling, and now that you knew her better, those small flashes of humor or smiles or even confusion were fascinating. Your past thoughts that she was cold and reserved were utterly wrong. She was reserved because she was passionate. It was like a dam holding back a flood. It was impossible not to be dragged along in her wake when she burst into action. Agent Booth's kidnapping proved that-- and she'd been ... magnetic when she was kicking the ass of that night.

But this musing was not getting you anywhere. You could leave the file folder here for Dr. Brennan to find, but you found yourself reluctant to do that. You hardly ever had any alone time with the woman, and she did seem to be more amenable to more open conversation the fewer observers there were. You'd begun to decide that what you'd thought was aloofness was actually shyness-- as stunning and successful as she was now, you'd finally come to see that she'd been as much of a geek in high school as you had.

You tucked the file under your arm and went in search of the High Priestess of Science. You walked slowly to the Bone Room where she and the interns often worked when there was only one set of remains, trying to keep your footsteps quiet in the echoing cavern. It felt ... profane to be too loud in here.

You saw the light filtering out from the Bone Room as you rounded the corner onto its hallway, and as you got nearer, heard a voice, but just one. Dr. Brennan's.

"What happened to you?" she asked. "How long were you down in where ever you were before you could finally sleep? Hodgins said it was a dirt packed-basement. He should know more tomorrow, maybe we'll even know where."

You stilled. This was worse than walking in on someone having sex or kissing for the first time-- this was far more intimate. Dr. Brennan never struck you as the kind of person who talked to her remains, though it would be perfectly healthy to do so, even in a far less stressful position than hers.

"I hope you weren't conscious for the last parts of it. Dr. Saroyan says you probably weren't." She sounded so sad as she said it, as if she didn't hope dare that Dr. Saroyan was right, but desperately wanted to. There was the sound of her walking around the table, her heels clicking on the floor.

"I know some of what happened, I promise. And Angela may know who you are tomorrow. We'll find your family-- somebody misses you-- Booth will tell them we know where you are, and I'll figure out what happened."

There was another long pause, and the sound of some heavy bone being replaced on the hard plastic table. You'd worked with the team long enough now to know what that sounded like-- long enough, too, to wonder if by the sound of the weight it were a femur, pelvis, or skull.

"He hurt you so much, for so long, and I know you fought. You were so brave. I'm going to find out how he did this to you, who he is. Booth and I both will." Her voice was strangled as she spoke again, and I felt tears pricking my throat in response.

"I'll never understand why people do this to one another. I'm so sorry. But I don't understand those kinds of things. I can only get you so far-- but don't worry, Booth's good at his job, he'll figure that part out. We'll find out who did this to you."

She sounded utterly heartbroken, as if her inability to explain motivation to some bones on a table was a personal failure, and God, it just slayed me. No wonder Booth was head over heels-- she was here in the middle of the night telling inanimate, unensouled bones on a table what she and her cadre of fact-finding clergy were doing to intercede on those bones' behalf with the angel of Justice.

Manning up so I wouldn't eavesdrop any further, I went to the doorway and knocked. "Dr. Brennan?"

She jerked her head up and around from where she was intently viewing something through a magnifier on one of the victim's right hands. "Dr. Sweets," she said, somewhat surprised.

"Hi," I offered. "I ... uh ... just finished my preliminary profile and thought I would come by to drop it off on the off chance that you and Agent Booth were still here."

She shook her head. "Booth had Parker for a few hours tonight. I told him not to come back unless something new arose." Straightening, she looked back at the remains on her table as if she were apologizing for interrupting their conversation.

"Ah. Well, I did a preliminary writeup of personality traits I think we're looking for, potential age and occupations."

"Male," she said, stating it not as a question but as an assertion.

"Yes," I replied-- it was unquestionably a male, one who hated women intensely.

She looked back at her remains, her profile two-thirds turned away from me.

"Whoever he is, he's six feet to six feet two inches tall, approximately two hundred twenty-five pounds in excellent physical shape. The blows were dealt evenly and forcefully." Her voice took on that factual mode of delivery-- her version of the liturgist's ringing intonations of lines of scripture-- she as authoritative in her findings as any priest fast in his faith through practice of years.

"That will help, thank you," you said.

She glanced back at you, as if she'd forgotten for a moment that you were there-- like those oracles who used to go into trances before they pronounced some truth. "May I see?" she asked, motioning for you to hand her the folder.

You did and she flipped through the few pages of your report, pursing her lips or frowning as she read.

"I wish I understood these profiles better," she said, rubbing the space between her eyebrows as she admitted what she'd just said to the bones of the young woman on the table. "I can't tell if it's something Booth would rather know about tonight or if it could wait until tomorrow."

You felt a deep compulsion to take one part of this service from her. "I can email it to him if you'll let me use your computer-- if he's up still he can call me and I can discuss it with him."

She barely paused before nodding, accepting your offering and returning the folder. "Thank you. If the security key has reengaged, the password is Jupiter." Some memory curved her mouth into a smile, then she turned her attention back to you. "Thanks, Sweets."

You nodded, feeling proud that she'd given you entree in to a late-night part of her work. "Sure. I'll hang out a bit in there if you don't mind in case he wants to talk to both of us."

She nodded absently, said "Good idea," and turned back to her bones.

Tucking the folder under your arm, you headed out quietly-- then paused to hear her voice softly say "Sweets says whoever did this to you could be provoked into admitting it. We'll make him admit it."

You felt flushed with purpose. She considered your findings important enough to make midnight promises to her bones. Your bones, too. You added your own silent promise as you headed off to her office. "_We'll find out who did this to you_."


	55. Seeley

**Seeley**

He didn't like people calling him by his first name. It wasn't so much that he didn't like his first name at all-- it was different, though yeah, picking Seeley instead of something like James or John or Robert did make for a bit of a tough time when he was little. But really-- the name _itself_ was okay. Seel was even acceptable-- uttered by friends when they were out drinking or screwing around, Jared when the two of them were just ragging each other and nothing more complex was going on. But he didn't like hearing Seeley from other people-- when people called him that, it meant something other than just lucky or fortunate or whatever it was in the German.

Nope. It was what it meant when people called him Seeley rather than Booth or Sarge or Seel that he really disliked. Booth was fine-- great, even, because it was what he'd _chosen_ to call himself, how he defined himself and let people deal with him. Seeley, though-- well, his Mom called him Seeley all the time, and the things she needed from him weren't anything a kid should have to be called upon to provide. Emotional support when he was little and Dad was passed out or not home and he could bring her ice or let her cry on his shoulder. Physical defense when he was older and could either provide himself as a distraction or when he was big enough, hit back. Monetary support-- seemed like half his salary when he was in the regular Army went home to Mom. Jared, too, called him Seeley. When Jared needed him to shield him Dad or his own bad choices, shield him from the rest of the world because Booth protected him a little too much when he was small, it was always "Seeley, I need your help." And their Dad-- well. He'd always come after him with a "Goddamnit Seeley," before that first whap of the belt or the slap of the hand, or roar "Seeley, get your ass down here" when he wanted a beer or someone to yell at or beat on because no one came into the shop or some bill was due that they didn't have cash for.

When his Army buddies or charges died or got hurt, it wasn't "Sarge," or "Booth," or "Seel." It was "not gonna make it, Seeley," or some other variant. When he went to GA meetings it was always "My name is Seeley, and I'm addicted to gambling." When he was in the confessional, it was "Seeley, my son, do one hundred Hail Marys in penance." Cam called him Seeley, availing herself of their past romantic relationship to call him a name he considered more personal than they really were anymore, and nagging him about things she'd learned in his past that he didn't need or want to be reminded of. Rebecca still called him Seeley, and he couldn't very well ask her not too-- it would be weird for Parker, and given all that he'd just have to put up with it, much as she annoyed the hell out of him for the way she would jerk him around and piss all over the things they'd had back when things were good.

It was the contrast in names that he really disliked, even hated-- he felt weak or flawed or overburdened or just exposed to the weight of past failures and lingering responsibilities when people called him Seeley. People needed things from Seeley that they didn't from Booth. Booth-- Agent Booth-- he got to come in with his gun and his badge and his hard-earned authority and solve things on his terms. Seeley had a hell of a lot of hangups to work around before he could solve anything, fix the problems others needed him for.

Booth was a good name. It meant people took him on his terms, didn't try to make him open up about stuff in the past, didn't shove those reminders and feelings in his face when he was doing pretty damned well for himself. It meant people didn't want more from him than he could really provide on the basis of his natural talents, and it meant people didn't presume to know him or ask for more than he felt like he could deal with. Booth meant he had things under control.

He felt secure and in charge when people called him Booth. Well-- except for Bones. The longer she called him Booth, the less he liked ever saying that's how he preferred to be called in the first place. Bones had never, ever called him Seeley-- never attempted the intimacy of calling him by his first name, of trying to get at who he was beyond the front he'd chosen to present to the world. Yes, sure, she'd say "My partner, Special Agent Seeley Booth," or something like that, but there was never a moment where they'd be sitting across from each other at the diner, or beside each other in the car, or on her couch eating takeout when she'd just call him Seeley as a precedent to whatever next bit of conversation they'd have.

It was fitting, since one of the nine million hangups Seeley had was Bones-- Temperance. He'd survived all sorts of shit, but just spitting out how he felt about her, how much she meant, how much it would kill him if anything happened to her? He couldn't do it, not yet. He'd called her Temperance when she was upset about something or he needed to get her attention, and it was equal-opportunity Bones or Temperance when he was having highly inappropriate thoughts or dreams about her, but she always called him Booth. Always took him at face value. Never pried. Hell, she never asked for anything from him at all, either from what his projected Booth or his tarnished Seeley-selves could provide.

_She_ could call him Seeley-- he wouldn't mind that at all. He would welcome the intimacy of her using his first name-- he'd jump for joy at the proof that she wanted to know more about him than he put out there on an everyday basis. He would welcome her needing things from him that stretched him, pushed him past painful things and meant she wanted him in more than just the way he'd first pushed himself into her life. If she called him Seeley, it would mean something new and different from the ways people had used his name before, because everything she knew about him grew out of Booth, not the weight of history imposed by Mom and Dad and Jar and Camille and Rebecca and his dead buddies and priest. But when she kept calling him Booth, it meant less. Booth was a consultant, partner and friend. Not more.

He knew for sure that Booth wasn't all he wanted to be to her-- and that as long as she called him just Booth, that was all they might be. He didn't know what it meant that after four years she still only called him Booth-- was she not interested in who Seeley was? Or was she projecting her own need for privacy onto him, when he'd tell her anything if she'd just ask?

How to tackle it though-- call her by her first name more often and hoped she'd do the same in return? He'd done it before and she hadn't whacked him for it. Should he just come out and say "You could call me Seeley, you know." Start just signing his texts with an S instead of with Booth?

Seeley-- lucky or fortunate. He wouldn't count himself both until she started using it, at which point he'd love being called Seeley, though only by Temperance.


	56. Need

_A short tag for Brennan's thoughts at the end of The Salt in the Wounds

* * *

  
_

**Need**

Ashley's mother needed to believe that her daughter and she shared everything, because the thought that her daughter was moving on to have her own life meant she was no longer needed.

Those girls needed each others' companionship, needed to keep together as a group against the unwelcome pressures coming from outside the team-- at least as they defined it.

That boy, that father-- he may not realize it, but he needed the affirmation of his larger worth that those girls' attention gave him.

Mr. Vaziri needed the time to dedicate himself to his religion, five times a day, every day.

Hodgins and Roxie needed more, permanently, from Angela than she could provide in the moment.

Booth needed to tell that boy that he had an ongoing responsibility to his children-- despite the sad truism that many men, unlike Booth, are irresponsible and unreliable.

Who needs me? What do I need?


	57. Substitutes and Surrogates

_I imagine this one takes place after The Salt in the Wounds._

* * *

**Substitutes and Surrogates**

"Bones?"

"Yes, Parker?" He's sitting on the floor in front of my coffee table, working on homework and otherwise waiting for Booth, who's running late for picking up Parker from Friday afternoon science club.

"How come you didn't go with Max to see your brother this weekend?"

I shake my head, not wanting to think about it-- but I would hardly fail to answer a question so innocent. "He was doing things with Russ and his daughters-- they're going to go to the amusement park and do some other things."

"So why wouldn't you go?" He's simply curious, and I think to myself that it was a small gift that he seems to find my company tolerable.

"I probably would have, Parker, but they didn't ask and I don't think it's polite to invite myself somewhere." I tamp down the urge to give voice to the thought that they wouldn't even have each other to get together with if it weren't for me. He doesn't need to hear that, and Booth would probably kill me for saying it anyway.

He thinks this over a long moment, and I watch as some new thought occurs to him. Really, it's like watching Booth except smaller, they have so many similar expressions. "How come you don't have any children? Your brother does. Mom and Dad have me. Lots of kids at school have parents your and Mom's age."

I choke down my surprise. "I ... well, it's complicated. Not everybody has children."

"How come you're not married or don't have a boyfriend, then?" he asks.

"Well, some people stay single, Parker. Not everyone has a long term partner or spouse."

He thinks some more, then says "You're my Dad's partner."

Oh, boy. "Not that kind of partner. I meant the kind of partners who have children together."

He thinks even more-- it's fascinating to watch the shift of expressions. "Dan in my class has two moms and they call themselves partners, is that what you mean?"

"Sort of." Good lord, he is in an interrogative mood today. Somehow, I don't think Booth would appreciate it if I give Parker a long exposition on the gay marriage issue.

"Well, you like boys, don't you?"

"I do, Parker." This is a strange conversation, but it is certainly interesting. It's always interesting, seeing where he might go, what he might ask me. Sometimes it has something to do with homework, sometimes science club, sometimes something Booth told him about work. He's almost endlessly curious.

"So if you like boys, why don't you have a boyfriend or spouse? You're pretty." He says it as a matter of fact, like the sun in the sky. I feel myself smiling-- he's too small to be insincere, but I'm sure that his perceptions of me are colored. The question is still painful under the compliment, though.

"People have boyfriends or girlfriends or partners who care about them for lots of reasons, Parker, not whether they're pretty or not. You want to laugh with somebody, find them interesting and like talking with them, have fun doing similar things, and know when they need help, and think they're pretty in the way that grown-ups do." That was pretty sanitized, Booth couldn't possibly be angry at me for that explanation.

"But you're all those things, Bones? So how come you don't have a boyfriend?"

He gets up and comes over to stand next to the desk, giving me the trademark Booth quizzical look.

"Well, most boys don't think like you do, Parker. It's hard to find someone who likes you as much as you like them. I've met lots of boys but none of them ended up liking me very much." _No matter how hard I try._

"Bones? Do you think your family doesn't like you enough to ask you to come spend the weekend with them even when you let Max work here even after he broke some of the rules? Is that why they didn't invite you?"

Ah, shit. He's too much of a Booth. My throat closes and my eyes well as yet another Booth boy nails my insecurities right to the wall. I clear my throat, say "I don't know. I think they don't think I enjoy being around children," and get up to go to the water cooler. "Excuse me Parker," I say. "I'll be right back. Please stay here until I return."

Wide-eyed, he nods at my sudden departure, but seemingly recovers himself, because I can hear him trotting along after me, as persistent as his father ever is.

"But Bones," he calls. "You like me and I'm children." He catches up to me and tugs on my pants leg to make me look at him. Eyes glittering, I say "Yes, Parker, I do," and swallow hard before turning back to the water cooler. The long cold glass of water doesn't dissolve the lump in my throat.

"Come on, pal," I say, grabbing his hand. "Let's go back to my office and finish your homework."

He looks at me evenly, in that way his father does of saying _we're not yet done discussing this_, but comes along compliantly.

* * *

A half hour later we've finished his homework but for his geography. He's having trouble with finding and drawing in rivers, so I come to sit behind him on the floor and point out where he needs to put them. He's drawing along the lines I've been tracing with my index finger when he shifts, sits in my lap, and says "It's easier this way."

"Far be it from me to argue with a determined young man intent on his rivers," I say, teasing.

He laughs, says "you're funny, Bones," and gets back to drawing the rest of them in. Finished, he puts down his crayon with pride and half-turns to look at me, a bright smile on his face. "We _did_ it, Bones. You did it even better than Mom. You should really have kids, you're a really cool Mom, but if you want, I can be your kid in the meantime. Or your boyfriend. Because I do think you're funny and pretty and I like spending time with you. But I'll do it until you have your own kid or boyfriend."

The innocent sweetness and plain matter-of-fact words and the combination of those Booth puppy-dog eyes make me realize I'm even more emotionally fraught than I thought I was. Tears start rolling down my cheeks without any will of my own, my throat and chest tightening.

"I appreciate that, Parker," I say, my voice strangled.

He looks at me, says "Don't cry, Bones," and turns half in my lap to brush at the tears spilling down my cheeks, much as his father has. "You should be happy, not sad."

I nod, not trusting myself to talk, and try what must be a terrible smile.

He just looks at me sadly, said "Don't be unhappy, Bones, I love you and Daddy does too," and reaches up to give me a kiss on the cheek.

It's too much and I bolt out of the room, saying only "please stay here, Parker," while I head off to the bathroom. I can't stand the fact that his son is saying all those things with such an innocent purpose. It's like having my heart ripped in two. I make it into the stall at the end and sink down onto the floor, my back to the wall, willing the cold tile to cool my fevered, unhappy thoughts. It doesn't help, so I concentrate on trying to maintain deep even breaths while the tears stream down my cheeks, so that at least anyone immediately entering won't hear me sobbing hysterically.

* * *

I walk into Bones' office to see Parker alone, looking serious as he sits on her sofa, his homework all piled neatly in front of him.

"Hey, Bub. Where's Bones?" I ask.

"I don't know," he says, looking more and more worried. "I think I made her upset, but I don't know why. I just told her I loved her and that I'd be her kid or her boyfriend until she gets her own."

My heart falls to my stomach. "What did she do when you told her that?"

"She started to cry and then started crying some more when I told her you and me loved her and then she left but she told me to stay here, so I did." He looks torn between doing as Bones said and his obvious concern for her. I desperately want to know what prompted the two of them to be talking about babies and boyfriends, though.

"Well, I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong, little man," I say, sitting down next to him. "But maybe you'd better back it up for me, hunh?"

He nods solemnly. "I asked her why she didn't go with Max to see her brother and his family this weekend and she said she wasn't invited to go to the amusement park with them and that she thought it would be rude to ask and then I asked her why she didn't have kids or a husband and she said she liked boys and liked kids but it was complicated and that she liked me but that most boys didn't think she was funny or pretty like I did and didn't like her that much to have babies, and that she didn't think people thought she liked kids anyway, including her family which is why they didn't invite her. Which was _dumb_, so I followed her when she went to get water and told her she liked me so she liked children and she nodded because she agreed with me. And then we did homework and I told her she did rivers better than Mom, and that she was cool and should have kids and a boyfriend, but that I'd be whichever she wanted until she had ones of her own. So she cried, and I told her not to cry because she shouldn't be sad and I loved her and that you loved her too, and she cried even harder and got up and told me to stay here."

Parker is the master of the run-on sentence when he thinks he's done wrong, and my heart falls from my stomach to my feet as he relates his conversation with Bones.

"Bub, you didn't do anything wrong, I'm sure of it." I say, trying to reassure him on that end. "Just ... Bones and her family are weird and they don't always understand each other as well as they could. I think she was already upset to begin with and you didn't do anything wrong, but by being nice to her, you reminded her about other people's not being so nice, so that made her sad."

He thinks about it and nodded, then says "How come you're not her boyfriend? Bones says you're not partners like Dan's two moms are and that you're work partners which is different than boyfriends. But you like Bones, and you think she's funny and pretty and like doing things with her, right? And then you and Bones could have kids and I'd get to be a big brother."

Ah, shit. He's a natural questioner, and it's only gotten worse since he's started hanging around the Max and the squints. And Bones, the most inquisitive, informative person in the world.

"It's not that easy, Parker," I manage.

He just looks at me in that way I have of saying _bullshit, the only person you're lying to is yourself _and said "Sure it is. You said if you loved someone or something then you should do whatever you can to take care of them because it's important to be happy, and you're happier with Bones than when you're not because you look tired after I go to bed and then come out for water. And," he said, taking a breath, "I'm happy when we hang out with Bones and Bones doesn't smile so much except when you're around unless I tell her a joke. So it's not hard at all." His chin's set in that stubborn way Bones had, and it occurred to me again-- it's been almost five months since I'd asked Bones to let Max stay in the lab, and Parker was picking up stuff from _her_ that I've never given him.

"You _do_ love Bones, right, Dad?" he asks, screwing his face up as he looks at me. It's not quite the stare I give perps when I'm pinning them down, but it's damned close.

"Of course, Parker. Bones is my friend and I do like doing things with her. Friends can love each other a lot."

Parker sighs. "No, Dad. I mean you love Bones like Brent loves Mom or like Grandma and Grandpa or Dan's two moms love each other. You look at Bones like Dan's one mom looks at her other mom."

_Great. I look at Bones like a lesbian lover? Well, at least it's good he's not homophobic. And wait-- I'm so obvious my own kid gets it? _He catches whatever look is on my face, then says, "Well, yeah, Lisa's a girl, but she kinda looks like you, she's got short hair and you can tell she really, really thinks Andi's pretty and smart. Because Andi is. She's maybe the coolest lady I knew besides Mom and Bones and Angela. And you think Bones is really, really pretty and really, really smart, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do," I say, flummoxed.

"So... don't you want to make Bones happy?" he asks, making my prior flummoxing feel as if I'd never been flummoxed at all in comparison.

"Of course I do, Parker."

"Because she thinks you're handsome and funny and she likes you a lot, she loves you too," he says, matter-of-factly.

"Really. How do you know, Bub?" More flummoxing. This is my night, I guess.

He looks around, as if it's a secret. Maybe it is. "Because she smiles when she gets off the phone with you and she turns red when Angela teases her about you and she gets mad when Max asks where you are and she looked sad last week when you ran so late that you had me go home to Mom and Bones drove me home looking really, really sad. Then she said she was going back to work. Like, _all weekend_, dad. That's not happy."

"You're sticking your nose into lots of stuff around here, aren't you, Bub?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "No. That's nosy. I'm just keeping my eyes and ears open like you said." He nods sagely, crosses his arms, and says "If you're not going to go find Bones then I am. It's late and I want some chicken fingers. There won't be too many girls in the bathroom and Bones won't care, I think. And that's where the girls at school go to cry."

I'm thinking hard about how to stop him from busting into the ladies' room when something changes in his face. "Actually, I think you should go find her. She cried the most when I said that you loved her too. I think she thinks you don't, Dad."

_Shit shit shit_. But I have to go and make her stop being upset-- sometimes I think I should have just killed Max when I had the chance. He gets her hopes up and then does thoughtless shit like this and she gets all watery-eyed and it just kills me. Parker too, apparently. Hating seeing Bones cry runs in the Booth genes, I guess. _Note to self, dangle Max from the lounge railing on Monday._

"Okay, Bub. Well, you know what? I'm going to find Bones, I think you're probably right about the bathroom. Will you be okay if you wait a bit more?"

He nods.

"Good. But if you need me, you use Bones' phone to call me just in case she's not in the bathroom and I have to go looking for her."

"Okay," he says, settling down and looking relieved now that I'm on the case. "You go get Bones and then we'll all go get chicken fingers."

* * *

"Bones?" I call, opening the door cautiously. A quick scan shows no feet except for Bones', along with what I can see of her bottom half sitting up against the very back wall of the bathroom, in the very last stall. She doesn't say anything in response, but there's a long sniffle, so I walk back and slowly open the door, since she didn't bother to lock it. Squatting in front of her, I have to swallow. I've seen her practically cry lots of times. I've seen her cry a fair bit a few times. But she's so red-eyed and red-nosed and white cheeked this time that I don't quite know what to do, especially since she's looking to the side of my head and won't look at me.

"Hey," I try. "Parker said Russ and Max are total shits."

She bites her lip and keeps looking away-- not her usual cute "_I'm thinking here_" nibble, but a serious chomp, the kind when people are holding back hysterical tears and the only way not to is to make something else painful enough to be distracting. She nods, finally, and wipes her eyes and nose with the back of her lab coat like she's a little kid. She's breaking my heart here. I'm going to have to take a ride down and dangle Russ off of something too. She gets the whole family all back together and straightened out, and they don't invite her along for the weekend? What the hell?

"Well, Parker insists that he's starving, and he wants to go get chicken fingers."

She bites her lip even harder, her eyes welling and spilling over this time. Angrily, she scrubs her eyes again, then says, her voice strangled, "Did he tell you that he offered to be my child and my boyfriend until I get ones of my own?"

"He did," I say cautiously, kind of surprised. I thought she was upset about her family-- she's always going on about monogamy being unnatural and how not everyone needs to have kids.

She scrubs her nose again, pushes up from the wall, and looks at me for a long time with this look that's sad and almost hopeless. When I stand, there's hardly room for two of us in the stall, so I back out and she follows me, then goes over to the sink to splash water on her face and dry it as she looks hard at herself in the mirror.

Turning, she has that same look as she says, "I think I'll pass on the chicken fingers tonight, Booth. I ... I'm ... Parker's a lovely boy and he's very ... dear, but ... I ... I can't handle substitutes and surrogates tonight."

Quickly, she turns and strides out of the bathroom and all I can do is watch as she goes, thinking about that look on her face just now.

_I don't know what this means._


	58. A Sixteen Year Old Girl

This is a different end-of-episode tag for "The Doctor in the Den." I wish, like many, that there was more B/B in the episode, but I felt like there was something else more important happening in the background that didn't, at this point, directly involve our favorite FBI candy.

* * *

**A Sixteen Year Old Girl**

_Of course she'd be here on a Saturday, _I thought to myself. It was eleven in the morning, and as we made our way into the lab, the lights came up automatically, lighting the cavernous space that just to that moment was lit only by the small puddle spilling out from her office.

"Come on," I said, gesturing to Michelle. "There's someone I'd like you to meet."

Michelle-- my _daughter_ again-- followed, curious. We'd had breakfast, collected some of her things to go to my place for the time being. Who knew what would happen in the future, though. Andrew left her the house, and I suppose I should move in there. It was where Michelle was most comfortable, and that was the most important thing.

She was working at some report on her computer-- most likely Andrew's. "Dr. Brennan?" I said, knocking.

She looked up, wearing her trademark half-wary, half-curious expression. "Ah. Good morning, Dr. Saroyan." Looking past me, her expression changed slightly, her gaze focused. And then her expression totally changed. A calm, open, encouraging smile, directed squarely at my daughter. "You must be Michelle. Hello, come on in." She stood and moved away from her desk, went over to sit in the chair next to her couch as Michelle and I came in and Michelle gave a quiet "hello" in return.

When we sat, I turned to Michelle and squeezed her knee for a moment. "Dr. Brennan is the forensic anthropologist here. She's the one who found out how your father was killed. She's Agent Booth's partner and usually works out in the field with him. I usually work more in the lab."

Brennan gave me a long, inscrutable look before speaking again. "It was a team effort. Dr. Saroyan-- Cam's-- work in figuring out some of the things that happened first to your father made it possible for me to determine ... the rest." She spoke slowly-- she was deliberately using vague terms to describe what happened and giving out credit to me twice in two cases. She paused once again, then said "I'm sorry for your loss. From everything I've heard, your father will be greatly missed by everyone. I know that Cam feels that same way." She gave Michelle another encouraging smile, then said, "So, what brings you two by the lab?"

I looked at Michelle, and she began to explain how she was curious about where I worked, how she wanted to know how it was different than the hospital-- then went on to describe how we'd had breakfast at the diner and how I'd shown her the sights of the neighborhood-- all as Brennan asked questions designed to keep her talking and animated, then volunteered further information about the area that might be of interest to Michelle as a teen.

I'd never thought of showing her things from that point of view, and I was surprised all over again as I watched and listened to the two of them talk. Brennan's tone was as always fairly reserved and mostly grave, but she gave off this air of taking Michelle seriously, that she was listening to every word that she said, that she wanted Michelle to know that she could keep talking and Brennan would continue to listen. Then it struck me.

_She does that with Parker when he's here, too. How did I miss that before now? She has a totally different way of dealing with children than the rest of the world. Some part of her will always be Michelle's age. She will always see part of the world from the eyes of a sixteen year old girl who couldn't do all the things she's now explaining to my daughter-- that my daughter will have the freedom to do because Brennan told me I should take her._

The two of them continued to talk as I shook off the shock of this revelation and began to take part in the conversation as it shifted to Michelle's interests in school, the sports she played. All in all, we made fifteen minutes of small talk, perhaps more in one sitting than I'd ever heard Brennan make the whole time I'd worked here. At that point, however, Michelle paused. "Could I ..."

Brennan smiled. "To the right, down the hall, third set of double glass doors. The lights will come on automatically."

Michelle gave her a smile in return, then got up to head to the bathroom.

A lingering _affectionate? _smile graced Brennan's face when she turned back to me. "She's lovely. Very bright."

"She is," I said, my voice thick all over again. "Thank you."

Brennan seemed to take a moment to process that statement, then said "I'm glad it worked out."

I found myself explaining what had happened with social services so far since Michelle had agreed yesterday afternoon to come live with me, how I'd spent the night at her house, how she was now going to stay at mine, what the immediate plans were for her in terms of school and all that, then heard myself stuttering over the more technical and terrifying legal aspects of officially being able to care for Michelle.

"I'm sure you'll have no problems with the approval process," Brennan said, interrupting me as I continued to halt over my explanation. "But you will require a few personal recommendations, and it's always best if one comes from someone who's already approved as a foster parent. I'll write one for you and leave it in your office. And if you like, I will give your name to my lawyer and he can walk you through things without a social worker present." Her expression was again grave, lacking that gentle smile she had when Michelle was in the room-- she was her usual matter of fact and utterly earnest Brennan again.

"That would ... yes," I said, my voice thick all over again. I'd done more crying this week than I've done since ... Zack. _Another child. One she still misses-- I see the way she looks at the interns, even Clark, when their backs are to her. _"Thank you."

"It's good she has you," she said then. "She's really a lovely girl. Anyone would be lucky to have her." That last statement was spoken with what I could swear was a sad tone in her voice. _I thought Brennan didn't want children? Well ... neither did I, because of Michelle. _Before I could put any part of that thought into a polite inquiry, one that wouldn't make Brennan re-erect that wall of reserve she'd let down somewhat on this case, Michelle came back into the room, standing and looking eager to explore the rest of the lab. Brennan rose, walked over to her and smiled as she shook her hand, then said "It was nice to meet you, I'm sure we'll see you a lot more around the lab. Please feel free to stop in if you need anything or if you have any questions."

Michelle nodded and smiled back at her, then turned toward me expectantly. _My daughter's waiting for me. _I got up, said thank you again, and gestured for Michelle to precede me.

I was a few steps away into the lab and I would never had heard it had the lab been full of people during a regular workday.

"I would have taken her if you didn't." It didn't sound like Brennan as she said it, however. It sounded like a sixteen year old girl.


	59. More Than One Direction

**Spoilers for The Science in the Physicist  
**

**_Thanks to doctorsuez and dawnsfire for their thoughts, which got me started in this direction.  
What was that look on Hodgins' face when Brennan walked away?  
_**

* * *

**More Than One Direction**

She looks so pleased when I say "you taught me that" after I've expressed my disdain for the Collar Institute and their refusal to look all around them-- for their refusal to see that the past holds important lessons for the present and future. At one point I would have given my left arm to work there, but since I met Dr. B., I realized that theory in a vacuum just creates airheads. It's the application of theory to problems that _means_ something, and if that's not what we do here than I don't know what is.

As I say it, though, she doesn't simply look pleased. She looks surprised, shy, pink, as if she's embarrassed. Her eyes twinkle, she gives me that lopsided smile of hers, and I suddenly feel like I'm out in the noonday sun in the middle of August. Does she honestly think we don't learn things from her every day? Does she not understand that we're only here because she is? The woman lets us take our own time, choose our own methods except in rare circumstances (and yes, she was right about the cannon), and accepts what she's told at face value. Incredulous, and yet incredible in the way she culls the solution to a case from all the disparate data streams coming at her from all sides.

I've flirted with her before, sure, and she's never karate chopped me for it, but it was all in good fun and she knew it. That hint of pink in her cheeks, though, that smile on her face and light in her eyes? I don't dare do anything about the fact that it stirs something in me, I'm not quite sure what-- except that it feels like when I first saw Angie not as a coworker but as somebody else in addition to that. As though Angie isn't enough reason to squelch that thought.

Unlike those bastards at Collar who let theory convince them murder was logical, I know that those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat those same mistakes in the future. And I'm determined not to make those same mistakes anymore. I just hope I learn to apply them in a different manner, get a better outcome this time. There's no going back, that's for sure. But maybe this time I can sidestep the issues, move forward in a different direction. I just need to figure out what that direction is.


	60. Glass Heart, Not Stone

**A/N:  
**

**I wasn't particularly happy with the end of _Cinderella in the Cardboard_, nor was I happy with Booth for reasons apparent within. (And in a lot of my fics lately. This season's Booth makes me grumpy.) So this is an attempt to delve into what lay underneath Brennan's expression and words at the end of the show.**

**Many thanks to MickeyBoggs, doctorsuez and celtic33 for their thoughts on this one, with an especial thank you to celtic33.  
**

* * *

**Glass Heart, Not Stone**

I don't know why I've even come here tonight. It's like those battered women who keep going back to their attackers looking for reassurance. He's not interested. He thinks the idea of an "us" is preposterous. He's made that clear in the past, and went to no small pains (to me at least, they were large pains) to remind me that we're complete opposites, that none of my experience with relationships nor my views on the world are worth any consideration at all. So I agree with him, adopt his assertions that we're just partners, give the same answers when people ask if we're involved.

And yet, every so often, I foolishly hope he thinks otherwise. Every so often, he makes these warm, kind, vague speeches about eventuallys and somedays and someones for everyones that make me hope that eventually, someday, he'll eliminate that line of his, the one I dare not cross, and want to be my someone. I know a clear boundary when I see one, contrary to even Booth's opinion. And that line is a boundary, that line he claims doesn't even need to be there.

For him, perhaps. I suppose he's just trying to be nice.

I thought for a while we were getting better, growing closer, that there might even be some possible someday between us. But just a few cases ago I was "_awkward_" again. During the last case I was "_creepy_." And this case, well?

I'm going to hell and I have a "_heart turned to stone_."

He doesn't think I can be warm and affectionate, or that small children like me? I try _so hard_ with Parker, with the other children on our cases. Does he really think my assertion, my question doesn't merit any response? I suppose that's his "_if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all_" reflex coming into action. Not that being called creepy or awkward or stonehearted was especially kind.

And Sweets. How can being honest with someone, with providing them facts they should know ever be wrong? Painful, yes. Wrong? When we see every day what happens when people allowed to think their monogamous partners are faithful do horrible things when they find out they're not?

Am I so freakishly different from people I thought were my friends that _no one_, not one of them, agrees that it's better to know you're being cuckolded than to not know? To think that this ideal of theirs is even possible?

Have they ever been cheated on? I have. I would have always preferred that someone tell me rather than find out for myself. It was more painful to me that my friends knew I was a fool and didn't care enough to help me move on to a better situation. Isn't that what friends are for? To prevent their friends from floundering around and getting more hurt than is necessary? To tell friends things that allow them to watch out for future pitfalls?

And now Booth's response as I tell him I'm jealous of the fact that all of them, everyone except me, believes in this love that they think is going to make them more happy, more complete persons than they would be if they were alone. That "_someday_" I'll find it and feel it-- that evanescent, far-distant "_someday_."

If it ever occurs, it's clear that the "_someone_" to whom he refers won't be him.

I don't have a heart turned to stone-- it's made of glass. And that vague promised "_someday_" he promised just now-- that's another crack.

I look at the bottle. I should have poured myself a glass-- it is his best scotch. I'll have to pick some up on the way home, I've only had three sips altogether, and I don't want to ruin his night, sitting here silently brooding in the wake of his "_someday_" speech. He's got to be annoyed that yet again I'm whining to him about something he's just not going to remedy. Ever.

Carefully, I set down the bottle, then push up from where I've been sitting. Under the circumstances, the continuing prospect of sitting next to the uninterested object of my own thoughts on "_someday_" is too much even for my masochistic heart.

"Done already, Bones? It's only been five minutes, and you've hardly had enough to color your breath, much less your vision" he says, looking up at me.

"I think so. Sorry I disturbed you. I'll pick you up a new bottle so you don't have to imbibe my backsplash."

"Backwash." His correction is automatic. "You don't have to go," he says then.

"I do, Booth," I say, then go find my bag. My brittle glass heart, already cracked in too many places, would make an excellent cutting tool, a little revenge for his ultimate disinterest. With my own interest unsaid, though, my words can hardly cut or wound, make him bleed like I do. "Maybe someday I'll learn to stop dumping on you."

_The sooner, the better, _I think as I close the door behind me, ignoring his querying "Bones?" He's supposed to be the "_heart_" of our partnership but I don't believe he doesn't know how I feel. Some things are better left cracked but not broken, and while so often I don't understand him, recently, it feels more as though he thinks that he hears me, but doesn't understand. It's time to stop fooling myself, stop breaking my own glass heart.


	61. Handkerchief

**A/N: **

**A Sweets-centric riff on the end of "_Mayhem in the Cross_." I could go on about so much in this episode, but so will everyone else. I hope brevity will be the soul not of wit, but of truth.**

* * *

**Handkerchief**

I'd thought about it before they came in and was 99 % certain that I knew the answer to Dr. Wyatt's assertion that one of them knew better how they felt for the other-- that one of them knew full well that they were in love and struggled with it every day. Unsaid but clear by implication was that the other one was still uncertain, perhaps even still in denial. Of course, I was completely disturbed by how wrong I'd been-- how tainted my assessment of them was in light of my own perspective, my still-unresolved needs.

Putting her own life on the line for her father by creating reasonable doubt. That shooting at the Checker Box. Her reaction when he came back from the dead. Her reaction when he was taken by the Gravedigger. Hell, the way she immediately leapt forward to see if his chin was okay when Dr. Collar punched him. Her defense of me when that murderer Kroom ran us off the road. Her painful but driven attempt to protect me from future untruth by Daisy.

Passion. Determination. Spontaneous defense of someone she loves, with unthinking, unquestioning, unstoppable pursuit of her goal, consequences be damned. It wasn't that she loved me like she loved him-- but she cared, and now that I thought of how she tried to protect me, it brought me back to see all those larger prior acts as unlabeled declarations of love. She'd made me one of her family and wanted to keep me safe, to protect me from further harm as she saw and knew it.

And she wanted to keep him safe. Protect him from harm. Even from her. _Especially_ from her.

I'd thought it was sublimation—denial-- each time she let slip some raw, personal declaration and then retreated back, suppressed her hurt, said nothing, declared that she was fine. I thought she didn't want to face her feelings and refused to admit that she was in love with her partner because the thought was too painful, too personal, too challenging to all the stability she'd built for herself from her own wounded childhood.

I was so wrong, and that 1 % of remaining uncertainty blew up in my face like an atomic bomb. Her passionate declaration of a pain so raw, the way she just blurted it out because she knew if she stopped to say it more nicely she'd never say it at all, the way she was so focused on me as she said it, trying to make sure I understood that she got it. It wasn't _about _her. She wasn't trying to garner sympathy. She never was-- she denied herself sympathy, because it meant that people's hearts ached for her and she didn't want anyone's heart to ache for any reason at all. She thought that if she shared that with me, it would make me feel better, would make me feel less alone. Feel less alone than she did—perhaps always would.

She'd never said something like that to me. Him, either. That mushroom cloud blew up in both our faces, but he was more shocked than I, speechless and focused completely on her and only capable of handing her that handkerchief-- not even able to do as I'd done and explicitly acknowledge back to her that her pain was as real and important as mine. He instantly retreated from her goal-- he'd planned on having me come out with them without discussing what lay underneath. But she uprooted something so painful and ugly out into the open just to save me from feeling excluded. There was no equivocation-- no subtext. She wanted it known that they both understood how I felt, that she understood how important they were to me and how her raw revelation could leave no doubt whatsoever that she felt like I counted. She stared him down, dared him not to do as she did to try to make me feel better despite how pained and shaken she was by her own admission. Her determination to make me feel better pulled him in, dragged him along until he made that confession to her-- not to me. But the confession served her purpose, to save me from believing one second longer that my place in the team was uncertain and revocable.

When he said it, while he was looking at me and snapping his barriers down like a steel trap, his words so sharp they could wound to the bone, I could see her face shift as she saw how much his confession had hurt him. When he turned back around to look at her, she'd already shoved almost all her raw self-revelation back down. Carefully, she folded those personal tears she'd wept away into a hidden part of his handkerchief, then folded it up perfectly and slowly returned it to his pocket, her reassurance that she was fine and the way her hand lingered a moment over his heart meant to tell him that _his_ pain was okay. She stuffed her heart back into that small piece of cotton and gave it back to him-- he had no idea what it meant.

I could tell when he looked down at the fabric she'd so neatly folded away that he didn't understand what she'd done. Not really. And that was the second atomic bomb of the night, that last 1 % now burned in my mind like the shadows of people against walls who were caught in the blast.

She was protecting _him_ from her damage by not revealing her past, by denying that she was anything more to him than a partner. I'd thought it was defensive, and it was. But she wasn't defending herself. She pushed him away, pretended like his romantic traditionalism meant nothing to her not because she was afraid that he wanted her-- but because she wanted him and thought her own damage would just hurt him more-- something she proved to herself all over again at how stricken he was by her revelation. She didn't want him to ever think of her as more than a partner because she thought he would be ruined, not her.

So she folded her pain up and put it away, then assured him she was fine. That done-- again, and how many millions of times had she done that in dealing with him-- she turned back to me, drawing me in and dragging me along in her inexorable wake, for once translating her own partner's subtext so it was clear. "_Booth means we would like it if you joined us_." So it was clear, so I had no doubt whatsoever that she thought I belonged.

I thought he knew her best of all of us. I certainly never thought I would know her better than he did. I wondered now if he really knew her at all-- if any one of us did, much less ever could. What she'd said to me wasn't unlike her at all-- it was just that we only knew that part of the handkerchief that showed over the top of Booth's pocket-- the clean, neatly folded part. The stained, wet, rumpled unclear part of her-- she'd shoved it down where its unsightliness wouldn't remind others of their own dirty laundry.

She was the heart of the matter-- and she felt that her purpose was to supply blood to the rest of the body. Her supplying blood to herself was only secondary. Her primary task was and would always be supplying the essence of life to everything and everyone who relied on her. And until now, like an outlying cell, I hadn't even been aware where that lifegiving blood came from-- and she didn't want me to. If she bled while supplying the rest of us-- she'd probably borrow a handkerchief, dab it away, fold it up and just get back to work. Drawing us along, moving us forward, making us feel better and whole.

Did she understand that if the heart failed, then everything else died right along with it? A small square of cotton wouldn't cover over that wound.


	62. Welcome Home

_**A/N: This is a post "Mayhem" thought piece.  
**_

_**Many thanks for all your comments on these last two pieces. There's always going to be disagreement over meaning in the Bones-verse, but I appreciate very much that something I've written prompted you to comment and write your own thoughts.**_

_**To the anonymous Alyssa—ff dot net doesn't let you put email addresses in the comments windows—it just deletes them. So I thank you for taking the time to comment, and if you want to PM me (if you have a login) please feel free to do so. If you'd like an email back (and I'm glad to continue the conversation if you are interested) then you need to type it out as emailaddress at hostname dot com—otherwise ff dot net will eat it.**_

_**Thanks, as always, for reading and reviewing. I do appreciate it, very much.**_

* * *

Welcome Home

There was so much in her life that didn't bear thinking about that sometimes some of the things that did merit further analysis got stuffed in accidentally with the things that needed shoving to the back of the drawer. But if you pointed out to her that something more--sometimes something big-- needed to be done, then she was completely gung-ho—if such an expression could ever describe the passion and honesty she poured into her efforts.

She wasn't doing it to garner attention, to get people to praise her for going all out. She simply saw no other point in interpersonal matters than to run at things full tilt at noontime, when things cast the least shadow. Subtlety too often meant deception or a prelude to cruelty, so she left aside or even pushed to the back of the drawer any inkling she might have had once of the fact that subtlety could also mean tact. To her, it all meant lies whose later truth was only bitter for the delay in its learning.

When her father's life was on the line and her own troubled heart told her that "justice" notwithstanding, she still wanted more time with him—when she realized that she had that same inkling of doubt as her partner that what he'd done was truly, irrevocably wrong and an act committed by an irredeemable person—she took her partner's advice to put her heart in overdrive and roared into that courtroom like a jet engine. She wasn't sure her father deserved it, much less that he would make the best of the chance he'd been given, but there was no way she could deny him the chance to deserve it.

When she realized that her partner was hurt by her naïve belief in his brother's assertions, when she saw how deeply her credulity cut, her apology was not on the insincere side of abject—but she was completely repentant, in such detail that she left no doubt not only of how sorry she was but also of how worthy he was of everyone's praise, not just her own. If her words failed to convince his brother, it was only his fault and no one else's, because everyone else in the room was completely persuaded.

When her partner's life hung in the balance, all everyday attempts of moderation and balance didn't just tip to the side of the unbalanced scale—they were far-flung from their tray as her decision of what had to be done came down like a ton of bricks on the side of acting, of helping and saving.

So when it was suggested that their therapist sought in them the parents he'd lost, that he sought to feel valuable by working with people he valued, that he sought a home in the team that they'd built for themselves—those were feelings she knew all too well. She already knew that she liked him, already knew that she wanted to save him from bodily or emotional pain—so the formal acknowledgement of a truth she already knew was forgone and emphatic. He needed confirmation from them that his wounding wasn't so deep that he couldn't go on and do good things, so she gave him a verbal torrent of truth—that no matter what any of the three of them had been through in the past, there was always something to salvage and build on. That torrent was an opening door—the metaphoric invitation to come on in, take your shoes off, and watch out for that bump in the old wooden floor.

The house wasn't perfect. The roof leaked on occasion and in the worst of winter the cracks in the walls whistled a bit. But there were lots of bedrooms, a living room and dining room table for everyone to gather around. But best of all, there was mom and dad's study. Sometimes they were in there together, sometimes one at a time. But there was a door to the study and you could knock and go in alone to ask questions, share heartaches, and be assured that this too would pass. Sometimes the door was closed and you had to wait for a bit, but when the door opened, it was your turn to shut the door and everyone else out behind you.

Their study was the heart of the home, but one thing bore remembering. There were rooms for everyone and the family came and went as they saw fit—but it was her house before it was anyone else's. Whether she flung the door open and hauled you in off the street by your arm, or merely opened it up a crack and let you make your way in, she lived there first, and was the one to announce it in her inimitable way.

"_What Booth means is we'd like you to join us for dinner_."

Welcome home.


	63. Indefinite Referent

**A/N:**

**The thoughts on _Mayhem_ barely stop. This time a more grammar-nerd musing on Dr. Wyatt's observation about what "one partner" feels.**

* * *

Indefinite Referent

"Agent Booth seems somewhat disturbed," Dr. Wyatt observed in his plummy voice, the noise of the running water as he and Brennan washed dishes obscuring their voices from the two men on Booth's couch in the living room.

Dr. Wyatt looked over his shoulder again, dishcloth in hand, and took in the man's set jaw, rigid posture and near-constant glances into the kitchen where his partner was washing dishes. Brennan's sleeves were pushed up, her hands deep in soapy water in the dishpan as she brushed the dirt from each dish, rinsed and handed each newly-washed item to her cleaning-up partner.

"Strike that," he said, looking back at her with interest and that classic arch British reserve-- the kind that said he would pretend not to be prying while he did just that. "He looks very disturbed."

"Yes," she said mildly, handing the soon to be ex-psychiatrist another dish. "I told him something he wasn't ready to hear when we were talking to Sweets, and now he's worried for me."

"Should he be? Worried, that is?"

She gave him a lopsided smile, then turned back to the dishes. Roll up your sleeves, run the hot water into the dishpan, squirt in some soap, add in the dishes and dirty utensils and glasses. Reach in, pull up another dish from the hot water under the suds, scrub, lift out of the water and rinse, hand over the dish, holding tightly enough to each one so it didn't fall or break. _Concentrate, Temperance. _

It was something she did every day, washing dishes. And every time, the skin on her hands burned almost as rawly as they had when she dropped that dish all those years ago. She hated psychology, hated the way she had to stuff down her internal responses to all the reminders each triggered memory threw at her-- sometimes hours' worth each day, sometimes just once or twice-- aside from doing the dishes. That burned each time, every time. Many of those memories did.

"No," she said. "But ... I think he sometimes forgets his own advice that just because something hurts when you do it, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it at all. Sometimes you just have to push through the pain while making sure you don't strain your limits."

"Sometimes one ignores the pain, too." He made the observation quietly and carefully, as if he didn't quite know what she might say in response.

She chuckled drily. "Yes, sometimes one does."

His laugh in response was full-throated. "Touche, my dear, touche. Sometimes one is one's own worst critic."

A laugh burbled out of her throat at his willingness to play along at her completely transparent obfuscation and Booth, hearing the noise, looked over at her just as she looked in return, ignoring Dr. Wyatt's physical and emotional bulk between them. Booth looked almost shocked that she should be laughing with her hands deep in dishwater, so she smiled in a manner she hoped was encouraging.

Responding, he stood, rolled his shoulders back and waggled his head a bit in that way that he had when he was too tense. A cautious look on his face, he came in just as she responded to the psychiatrist's last observation. "Sometimes one does, Doctor Wyatt. And sometimes one just needs knowing the matter is worthy of sympathy."

Booth, taking up a dishtowel, looked at her more sharply and curiously, then shifted his gaze to Dr. Wyatt. "What's with the third person singular psychological babble? You shrinking my partner while I'm duck hunting, Gordon-Gordon?"

"Not at all, Agent Booth," he replied with a short glance at his dishwashing companion. "We were using the singular they, or perhaps even the fourth person, the obviative or indefinite referent."

There was a short pause as Booth looked at them both and Brennan gave him another encouraging nod to assure him she was fine. She finished a dish, rinsed it, and held it out to her partner. If a moment longer passed between them than was necessary as he took hold of one edge of the dish with his towel and she held firmly on to her side with her wet, soapy hand, neither acknowledged or said so aloud.

"Unh-hunh," Booth said after he broke eye contact with his partner and gave the psychiatrist the once over before take the dish more fully in hand and beginning to dry it. Just then, Dr. Sweets called from the other room, finding the album cover that had been the source of such amusement before the partners went to retrieve him.

"You do like your plays on words," she said when Booth was gone, humor and caution both in her voice.

"I _am_ English," he said. "It comes with the territory. But it's true, isn't it? At some point such distinctions as he or she or you and me become blurred, and the singular they or the indefinite reference is more _a propos_?"

She paused in her motions, hands still in the water, to look at him fully and give him the attention his question deserved. "At some point, yes. At some point, two become one."

Wyatt dearly wanted to press as a clear and deep memory passed over her face as she looked at her partner while saying "_two become one_--" instead, he followed her gaze. Booth's back was turned to his partner, attention split between Dr. Sweets and the dish she'd given him. Distractedly, he kept rubbing the towel over the dish, long after it was already dry.

Daring, he asked one last question, the one he decided would be the last of his psychiatric career. "And ... when is that some point?"

She blinked the memory away and looked at him gravely, a faint glittering sheen in her eyes. "Eventually. Someday. One isn't yet certain." She blinked again, smiled tightly at her interrogator, and washed the last dish, handing it to him, the end of the discussion reached with the end of the dishes. Attention back on the dishpan, Brennan lifted it carefully, tipped it to the side and emptied it out.

Rinse. Pat dry. Put the pan back under the sink until it's time to wash dishes again. _Concentrate, Temperance._

Booth came back in with the dish he'd worried over in his dishtowel and reached up to put it away. Their eyes caught as she came up from putting the dishpan back in its place and a long moment passed as he looked at her and she looked at him, the things unsaid between them still burning, still painful.

_Concentrate, Temperance. Concentrate._


	64. Same but Different

_**A/N: A Booth-centered piece after Mayhem.**_

* * *

Same but different

"Why didn't you tell me?" It's a clear enough question, though perhaps it's not fair. Perhaps even more so because I ask it just as we arrive at her door. Tonight, I needed to see her all the way back up to her place.

She looked at me quietly for a long moment before saying "Because I'm the same person I always was whether I talked about it or not." She paused another long moment, looking at me intently, her blue gaze burning white hot.

Touching me briefly over my heart again, my handkerchief still tucked in my coat pocket in a different manner than the way I usually folded it, she said "You're the same person, too. But thank you for telling me anyway-- it helped Sweets."

Her mouth twisted at some further thought even as my question came blurting out. "And what kind of person am I, exactly?"

Why didn't she feel the need to ask me what had happened? Didn't she want to know? _Smooth, Seeley. You're turning into a neurotic thirteen year old girl around her._

She didn't hesitate to answer me, though. Her expression as still and calm as it ever was when she announced her scientific conclusions, she spoke. "A good person. A good father. A good partner. A good friend. A ... better man than you give yourself credit for, no matter what your church says about sin."

Her smile turned lopsided even as she half turned and turned the key in her lock. I'd walked her up here meaning to comfort her, and here she was offering me words of reassurance-- words that worked, goddamnit, the weight they lifted from my shoulders making me dizzy.

"Bones," I said, feeling unbalanced by the way so many things had shifted tonight and struggling to get out some words that might tell her the same in return. "You're ... it's not your fault ..." was all I could manage, a pale echo of Sweets' quicker, more vehement response to her revelation. "You shouldn't have had to ..."

She cut me off before I could speak further. "Neither should you, Booth. None of those times. But ... we're the same people we always were." Her door opened under her hand and she looked at me over her shoulder.

"Good night, Booth," she said solemnly. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah," I managed. "See you tomorrow."

I stepped back a bit as she closed the door softly, then locked up after herself as I stood there, reeling all over again. She didn't see anything different about me-- and she believed something about me I didn't. Hadn't. Could I? She did.

I would see her tomorrow, it was true. But despite what she said about us being the same people we always were, there was one part of what she'd said that wasn't quite true. She was the same person she always was, but the question was no longer _why hadn't she told me_? The question was _why hadn't I known it was there_? She was the same person, yes-- but now my perspective was totally different. _What else am I going to see that I didn't notice before?_

_

* * *

_"_It's just that Brennan and Booth aren't in any way opposites.  
… One of them is acutely aware of that attraction, struggles with it daily as a matter of fact_."

Dr. Gordon Wyatt


	65. Dramatic Internal Monologue

**_A/N: Thanks to celtic33 and SuchAGoodGirl for their thoughts on this one._**

**_This is more than a bit silly, a parodic riff on Gordon-Gordon and Angela's recent discussions of how Booth is smarter than he lets on, as well as an attempt to figure out why the heck Booth just hasn't announced his intentions to Brennan. Plus-- if you read too many Great Works of Literature, well, your syntax and word choice get hinky.  
_**

**_I therefore bid you enjoy this small trifle with a grain of salt. Or two. Or twenty. It's more than a bit of a goof on Booth's Dramatic Internal Monologue.  
_**

* * *

**Dramatic Internal Monologue**

I do so wish that the estimable Dr. Wyatt would cease his percipient prattling regarding my intellect. While of course his observation is eminently acute, as is that of the lovely Ms. Montenegro, she who doth impart same unto my fair partner, their insistence on my revealing my internal perspicacity is more than inconvenient. Do they not know, do they not comprehend that my outward persona is critical to my endeavors as a Columbo-like investigator of shambling acuity, albeit one far better dressed and far less physically disheveled? Too, do they fail to conceive of the need of my fair, beloved Temperance to assure herself that tho' her past may be dark and so tragic, her intellect dost preserve her now and into posterity?

My fair Temperance, my wonderful Bones. Oh, she that doth light my days and my nights, her beauty and brilliance eclipsing all other lights in the sky. Her grace, her charming ways, her artless innocence-- oh, how they draw me when so many around her let their worldly experience taint their willingness to see each day with new eyes. But not my sweet, lovely Bones. No, she maintains her pure spirit 'spite all the trials and travails that life hath cast her way. And tho' her countenance is oft weary or sad, her pure purpose and high intellect, her selflessness in lending her aid to my quest to slay th' evils surrounding us is a courageous, unfaltering thing.

She is delicate of spirit, my Temperance. Despite her strengths and accomplishments, her sensibilities requires the gentle nursing only I can provide. Were I to give full vent to the breadth of my keen comprehension, she might retreat behind those curs'd walls of hers, believing wrongly that I do not require her aid in my pursuit of the wicked. Her quick wit and keen eye are vital to our noble purpose, but her shyness in the face of the world would fain make her withdraw were I not to lead her out by the hand, claiming need of her genius. And though 'tis perhaps weakness to admit it, she is the sun to me, and I were like to faint and fall pale and weak to th' ground without her light to sustain me, the heat of her smile in which I needs must bask all the rest of my days.

Lo, even now as she sits beside me, the near o'erwhelming scent of her hair intoxicates me. My body trembles with need to draw her to me, to envelop her in my virile embrace, to claim her heart and nurture her fragile, fair spirit. But no ... the time is not nigh. She still doubts th' existence of love, and until that day arrives, I needs must deny myself the whole of my sun, my Temperance. That I can bask in part of her light, be nurtured by those small smiles and laughs she graces me with-- it must suffice until her wounded heart is healed sufficient to accept the love I will pour o'er it until the end of our lives together.

"Booth."

"What?"

"Booth, you fell asleep."

"What? No, Bones. Just thinking. I wasn't asleep."

"You weren't even watching the movie. I knew you'd be bored."

"No... no, don't you worry about that Bones, I like classic movies."

"No, I shouldn't have made you watch this. I'm sorry. We can switch to one of your warmongering spectacles if you prefer."

"Nah, Bones, don't worry about it. I actually like _Wuthering Heights_."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. You turn the sound back up there, Bones. I'll go get some more wine, okay?"

I rise from my perch upon the settee, inhaling again her intoxicating scent before going in search of further libations. Having found and served forth a pinot noir of no average year, I return to my honored seat alongside the queen of my heart.

"Thanks," she says, her dulcet voice sending chills through me.

"Anytime, Bones, anytime."

I am mesmerized as she drinks, the garnet liquid tipped to those palest pink lips of hers, her eyes closing as she savors the wine.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You were staring at me, Booth."

"You're imagining things, Bones. This is what, your fourth glass of wine? Maybe you ought to lay off there, you lush."

"It's a burgundy. It's not one of those high-alcohol over-oaked Super-Tuscans you like."

"Hey. A manly man likes a manly wine."

She snorts in amusement, but says nothing more as she returns her attention to the flickering images on the screen before us. Dare I? I do. My arm rests now o'er her shoulders, and ere a minute has past, she curls her slender legs beneath her and settles more securely into my embrace. My heart thrills at the contact between us.

"Are you sure you don't mind this?"

"Bones. Knock it off, will you? I already told you I like _Wuthering Heights_. Though I've got to say, this Olivier one may be the classic, but I'm more into the version with Ray Fiennes and Juliette Binoche."

"Really?"

"Really. Now shut up, okay? This is one of the good parts."

She quiets, her warm frame leaning against mine, her profile turned once again so I might admire the curl of those soot-dark lashes against that moon-bright skin. I do so welcome these evenings together, when with increasing frequency and duration she seeks out and welcomes my presence and fine conversation. In time, my dear Temperance will see that there is no greater love than that which I bear for her, and our fated souls will be finally joined.

Lest she divine that I stare upon her beautiful countenance, I return my attention to the movie before us. I do so prefer Fiennes to Olivier. That Olivier guy's delivery was all talk and no action. Fiennes at least looks like he can bench press a few pounds. And face it, Heathcliffe's a guy who's intent on his vengeance. You need someone who can fill out some britches in a manly-man kind of way if you're out to cause some emotional pain.

Like me. When I don my britches and pace manfully after my fleeing, frightened Temperance, o'erwhelmed at the confusing emotion that bears upon her bruised heart e'en as she tries to apply her pure intellect to solace life's evils... I wonder if she'll swoon a little when I encompass her within my loving guns of steel. Swooning would be totally cool.

"Booth, you're not even watching ..."

"Bones. Thinking here, okay? Thinking. Leave a man to his thoughts, wilst thou?"

"What?" Her lovely brow furrows as in my passion my unmask'd thoughts pour from my lips.

"Just ... watch the movie, okay?" Yeah. Swooning would be a wondrous delight.


	66. Signal Delay

_**A post "Girl in the Mask" piece. Many thanks to dawnsfire for her thoughts.**_

* * *

_**Signal Delay**_

You were sitting at the counter in the diner with Bones eating breakfast when your phone rang, about 24 hours after you'd seen Nak off at the airport. Looking at the number, you saw it was him.

"Nak," you said, answering. Bones, sitting beside you, stilled for a moment then went on with her oatmeal. "Plane made it in alright?"

"Yes, everything's fine. Sachi will be put to rest with my parents tomorrow." There was a pause on the other end of the line-- it was hard to tell if it was a signal delay from the long distance connection or just him thinking of something. Hell, as far as technology'd come, international calls still amazed you sometimes-- not that there was any delay in the signal, but that there were any conversations at all given the sheer distance involved. "I wanted to thank you again, Booth. You were right ... it was important in the end to find out what happened to my sister."

"Well, we'll be watching that pimp like a hawk, Nak. As soon as he makes just one misstep I'll be all over him." It was the least you could promise-- it couldn't possibly have hurt you as much as it hurt Nak to have to make that deal, but ... getting Vogler. That was what mattered most, and Nak knew that.

"I am sure that you will, and that the charges will stick." He sounded exhausted, and no wonder, with a twelve-hour plus flight under his belt. You were about to say so when he spoke again.

"I hope you will convey my thanks again to Dr. Brennan. I sent her a small token of thanks, but I wanted to make sure she had my verbal gratitude once again."

"I'll let her know," you said, assuring him. She'd been really good with Nak, observing those formal rituals that allowed Nak to keep it under control enough to feel like his sister and his grief were being respected. You were surprised all the time by what Bones knew and observed, and she'd done the right thing by Nak, even as you didn't know all that formal stuff but could deal with him cop to cop.

"Your partner is a very beautiful and dedicated woman, Booth."

Geez, Nak. Way to put you on the spot with Bones sitting right here at the counter. But if you got up to have the conversation outside, Bones would be curious. Well, you could keep your end of the conversation vague.

"Yeah, you got that right." You weren't able to keep the rueful tone out of your voice. What the hell were you going to do about Bones? It was all you could do to get through the day with her sometimes, not that you'd do without her. But still.

"She told me she was very lucky to work with you," Nak added then. "It was very interesting, because later when we were speaking about Sachi she mentioned her family and said she was sure that Sachi knew how much I cared for her as a brother because of how often we spoke."

"Hunh," was about the only response you could muster. Bones guarded her past and her uncertain present relationships with her family very tightly-- to have mentioned it to Nak was really something. "She didn't mention you guys talked." Safe enough, right? You could make something up about some formal Japanese custom you hadn't had time for. Maybe some gift of thanks to Tanaka or something.

"She mentioned that outside of work she did not speak with anyone so often as I spoke with Sachi. I think you are lucky to work with her as well, Booth." Well, wasn't Nak feeling nosy? Usually he had to be drunk to get this touchy-feely. But he had it right-- you were lucky to work with Bones. It was the things about Bones that weren't about work that the term "_lucky_" didn't apply to.

"Hunh," was about all you could manage again.

"She's sitting right there, isn't she?" Nak said then, a faint trace of humor in his voice.

"Yeah," you said, chuckling despite yourself. Trust Nak to have figured out that the two of you usually had breakfast most mornings. Of course, you were just getting to work and Bones had often been there an hour or two and breakfast was a break for her.

"I'll let you go then," he said. "But Booth ... I don't think she looks at you as a brother. Think about it."

You sighed, unable to help yourself. "I already have, Nak."

There was a pause, maybe another signal delay.

"Well, maybe you should think harder. I do not think she is the type of person to decide who counts as family of whatever kind lightly. Yet it seemed clear to me at least that she has decided you count in some way."

"Look, Nak, I'll give you a call later, ok?" You could _not _have the rest of this conversation before Bones, and you were going to have to tell Nak to mind his own business in any event.

"Sure-- talk to you then."

You hung up and looked at your phone for a moment, then back at your partner. "Nak. Said to say thanks again. He's interring Sachi tomorrow."

Bones nodded, a half grimace on her face. "He's a very good brother." There was a wistful look on her face and you were trying to figure out whether to answer at all when she changed the subject. "It was very interesting to work with Dr. Tanaka. I don't know that I agree with all of Dr. Tanaka's methods, but it did allow us to confirm the cause of death, so in that regard I don't suppose my agreement is relevant."

"Whatever works, hunh Bones?"

She thought about it, pursing her lips. "Perhaps."

Well, that was about as much a concession as you were ever likely to get from her on any subject, much less one on her precious scientific process.

"Hey ... what was up with the personal pronouns thing with Dr. Tanaka? Why not just call him he?"

She arched an eyebrow, seemingly unsurprised you'd figured out the guy was a guy. You hadn't gone and looked it up or anything, it had been clear under everything else that he was a he, outward appearance notwithstanding, but still. It wasn't surprising the squints and Sweets had been a little obsessed.

"Dr. Tanaka has made a specific decision about the way Dr. Tanaka wants to interact to the rest of the world. Sex is biological only, and if Dr. Tanaka finds it important to deal with people in a non-gendered way, then we should respect that. That decision does not affect the analytical perspective Dr. Tanaka brings to the work-- the regard for objectivity remains intact."

"And yet when people choose to be religious, you're all over that." You just didn't get her sometimes, and your tone was acerbic as a result. She could be so respectful of some cultural choices, and so brusque and dismissive of others.

She looked at you a long moment. "It's not the fact of belief or religion that bothers me, Booth. It's the unwillingness in a modern society such as ours where people have enough education to know that there are other possible worldviews-- the refusal to set those beliefs aside to examine the possibility that something other than their chosen beliefs could be the cause of some action, some fact, some phenomena. It's the insistence that only one moral approach should dictate our conduct, the belief that anyone who doesn't adhere to that creed is going to, well, as you said a few weeks ago, '_burn in hell_.'"

There was another pause as she looked at you, not unlike the pause over the line with Nak. You weren't sure quite what the delay was this time either.

"It's not the belief itself, Booth. It's the refusal by someone with the tools to think otherwise to admit that someone else's approach might be equally valid. I have yet to encounter any situation that would cause me to conclude that a religious phenomena was the cause of something-- although I could admit that knowledge of religious perspectives might bring a broader view so long as it did not control the ultimate analysis over any other methodology."

She had a thoughtful look on her face as she said that last bit, but her gaze sharpened and she looked at you keenly as she brought the conversation around. You, however, were still stuck on what she'd just said about your joke about her burning in hell. You hadn't meant that, surely she knew you were just joking? Why the hell did she even remember that? That happened almost a month ago. But your partner was speaking again.

"In that way, it's just like Dr. Tanaka. Gender is a construct, a way of looking at things and guiding the behaviors through which we interact with the rest of the world-- it's a language of sorts. But Dr. Tanaka still performs admirable work, whether or not Dr. Tanaka rejects the construction of gender. That other people find that rejection perturbing does not change the quality or outcome of the work. I'm not going to impose a worldview on Dr. Tanaka that Dr. Tanaka deems irrelevant to who Dr. Tanaka is as a person, no matter how common that worldview might be."

Stopping, she scraped up the rest of her oatmeal and sipped the last of her coffee, then set her empty mug down on its saucer. Your "hunh" was more thoughtful this time.

"Bones," you said, your brain catching up with your mouth. "You know I was just kidding about your burning in hell, right?"

She looked at you before shaking her head with genuine confusion, a serious look on her face. "Why would you say something you didn't mean, whether I think your beliefs are valid or not? I suppose I am a hell-bound heretic according to your beliefs." She shrugged, gave you a lopsided grimace, and laid down some bills even as the shock of her statement still rocketed through you. She believed you meant whatever you said? She thought you actually thought that? It was such a shock that she was out of the diner and the door closing behind her before you came to. You knew she was literal, but that much?

_Jesus Christ. Or not, as the case may be._

You tossed down some bills and went after her.

By the time you caught up to her, Bones was already back at the lab in her office, and there was a huge bouquet of yellow and white chrysanthemums on her desk, along with what looked to be a Japanese scroll.

"Whoa," you heard yourself say, "What's that?" Your intent to reassure her that you thought that she of anyone had the first position in line at St. Peter's Gate was derailed by the enormous floral display and large, decorative scroll.

She gave you a half-smile. "It's from Ken Nakamura," she replied, then handed you a handwritten card.

_Dr. Brennan-- My apologies for being unable before now to present you with an appropriate token of my deep gratitude for your assistance and my esteem for your accomplishments. I hope you will consider me one of those persons at work upon whom you can call hereafter, knowing that I will consider you as part of my work family._

There was a kanji symbol over Nak's name that you knew meant deepest thanks, though you didn't really know many other of the calligraphed symbols besides the ones on the insides of your wrists.

"What's with the flowers," you asked, noting that the scroll itself was bordered with a gilt chrysanthemum, the yellow head of the bloom taking up nearly the whole top of the scroll, the green stem and leaves lining one long side.

"It's the traditional flower of _boku no hai_," Bones said absently as she traced her fingers over the calligraphed symbols, clearly reading their meaning. "It's the cultural holiday when scholars are honored."

Standing behind her, you looked at the scroll. "What's it say?" you asked, more than curious that Nak should send what was hardly a token, and almost feeling jealous despite your conversation not a half hour ago.

"This," she said, pointing to the largest symbol, the one to the farthest right of the scroll, "this means family," and a small smile appeared on her face.

"These ones," she said, pointing to the rest, appearing in vertical lines to the left of the word family, "these say other things-- concepts, not sentences."

Tracing each one, she spoke slowly, her finger moving from the top of the scroll to its bottom.

"Wise woman, or matriarch."

"Mother."

"Sibling."

"Friend."

Her smile grew until she reached the last one, when her expression grew still.

"What's that one?" you asked, wondering at her expression.

"Lover," she said, shaking her head. "The calligrapher must have been mistaken. The symbol for justice isn't dissimilar-- sometimes the less practiced get them confused."

She firmed her lips as her fingers traced over the character once again, her unspoken thought clear as day. _I'm no one's beloved._

Yet again, you delayed. You knew Nak wasn't mistaken in putting that character on there. But how could you expect her to hear a message you never quiet sent?

Bones shrugged then and smiled wistfully. "It's a lovely gift nevertheless. And very few people read kanji right here in the lab. No one will really note the mistake."

You were about to correct her when your words were interrupted by your phone ringing-- Charlie calling with a new case. When you got off, Bones looked expectant.

"Come on, Bones, grab your kit. We've got a wet one."

You watched as she grabbed her things and headed out before you. Turning for a moment, you looked at the scroll open still on her desk, that last symbol clear but mistaken by her. You'd have time to clarify it for her later-- for now you just had to stop lagging behind her and get to the scene.

"Hey, Bones! Wait up there, will you?" You jogged after your partner.


	67. What Did He See

_**A/N:**_

_**I needed to explore Brennan's reaction in "Beaver in the Otter" in the interrogation room as the killer described what made her kill Beaver. Her look of alarm that Sweets guessed, her need to know right then and there how he'd known-- it seemed like there was far more going on there than her simply being surprised that Sweets had guessed right. There was a real trigger in what that girl said-- and in Brennan's fear of how Sweets had just seen it.**_

_**Thanks to doctorsuez for her agreement that there was something here to explore.**_

* * *

What Did He See?

That girl hadn't exhibited any outward signs of distress, at least to my eye. There was nothing-- _nothing_-- to show she'd been assaulted by--_ it makes me sick to call him the victim, not her_. She seemed only normally distressed by the news of ... Bouvier's death-- she'd even lied with apparent fluency about the victim being easygoing at the outset, until she was confronted with the information from the fraternity that Bouvier was claiming he'd slept with her. Even then, her response had seemed proportional, reasonable. Volunteering to give DNA and asking for them to clear her name? Completely believable.

And even when they'd gone back to the school, as she, Booth and Sweets spoke with the group-- confronted them about the nail gun-- I'd looked straight at her. Straight at _all_ of them. And she seemed _fine _to me. There were _no _outward signs that she'd been invaded by a sociopathic fraternity boy.

There were no signs-- to me. Until Booth confronted her, trusting Sweets' assertion that she was the one. And until she confessed it-- I still would have believed her. And after she confessed it? I almost-- _almost_-- didn't blame her. No. _I didn't blame her at all. _

As she described it, I could see it, imagine it, feel it all too well-- except mine hadn't stopped with a tongue down my throat and some boorish imprecation to just go along with everyone else's assumption. And I hadn't had a nail gun. I don't even know if I'd have used one if I had it-- would I have had the presence of mind to defend myself the way that she had? Probably not-- not the way I was then. What makes me think I would have stood up for myself like she had, much less given him what he deserved? _He deserved it._

If Sweets saw those signs in her, and this girl was undoubtedly stronger than I was at the time-- what did he see in me now? How did he see it in her? Did anyone else see? What had I shown when I thought I had it all under control-- when I thought I'd successfully suppressed how I still sometimes felt so that no one would know what I'd been through?

I had to know-- and in any event, my adrenaline and pulse were hammering so hard through me as I resisted the urge to drag her out of the room and drive her wherever she wanted that I had to get up and leave the room, confront Sweets. And he wouldn't answer-- was angry at me-- accused me of thinking he was guessing.

Maybe he was guessing. But it didn't matter, because if he guessed right about her, he might also see the truth about me-- which meant others might, too. I'm not ready for that. I might never be.

* * *

_**I know I'm behind with Character Building and many other fics, but work and the flu are slowing me down. Sorry!**_


	68. Resonant

**_A/N:_**

**_I keep saying I don't do songfics, and then I write them anyway. The Foo Fighters seem to provide an endless source of B/B angst material. This is "Lonely as You" from One by One._**

_

* * *

_

**  
Resonant**  
_  
What would I do?_  
_Lonely as you_  
_Pleasure or pain I can't choose_  
_What would I do?_  
_Lonely as you_  
_Pleasure or pain I can't choose_

You knew your partner better than it might be believed-- all that pain and anguish from growing up in such terrible circumstances. And you knew all too well that your partnership, your friendship, your complementary, symbiotic relationship, your partner's near-everyday company was what made you happy these days more than anything else. Except when it didn't, because at the end of the day you went home alone, your partner not in your bed. Your partner wasn't there first thing in the morning to smile and eat breakfast while you both had messy bed-head, then argued over who showered first-- or you showered together. But confessing how you felt could well ruin it all, that bond that kept your fragile hold on your outward control in place, no matter how you protested to the rest of the world that you were strong and almost invincible. And yes-- your partner had some idea of what you'd been through-- the little bits you'd disclosed. But if you ever told the whole, if you ever revealed how weak you were-- well, it was proof you might not be strong enough to provide support when your partner's going really got rough. And the thought that your partner might believe you couldn't help, wouldn't be there? It hurt even more than the idea of waking up alone. Even when you had company, you were still alone. You couldn't say all that you felt-- it would have to be enough to share company during the day, laugh and bicker and have more serious talks than you had with anyone else, and then go home alone for the night, no matter how much it hurt. The prospect of not at least having the daytimes with your partner wasn't bearable.

_Wake up your dreaming, I can't stand your screaming_  
_Drowning out these prayers, just some words without meaning_  
_Spare all the preaching, my secret's worth keeping_  
_No one understands like I do_

Sometimes you felt like pressing your partner on things from the past. There were mornings when you two were eating breakfast together when the drawn features, dark circles under the eyes, slightly hunched shoulders practically killed you-- and then there were mornings when you were the one who'd woken too many times in the night, reliving not nightmares but past truths, real memories. And that was why you didn't press-- because you desperately needed, told yourself over and over so frantically that it could never be counted a prayer, that your partner never knew how deep the damage went. It would hurt to reveal it, but it would hurt even more to see how it would hurt your partner to know. It wasn't a matter of being an object of pity-- it was the fact that your partner would feel pain at your pain at all that made you shut your mouth over the confessions you wanted to make, just because you knew your partner would understand more than anyone else, having had horrors to contend with before the two of you ever met. But doing so would bring up that old pain, and you'd rather slit your own throat before dredging up the nightmares that didn't shadow your partner's eyes on the mornings yours did. So you made trite observations, exchanged meaningless small talk, discussed work, and generally just spoke about nothing until the sheer activity of talking and hearing your partner's voice and feeling heard about things you didn't dare say aloud made you feel better, and you could smile in response to your partner's attempts to make you feel better.

You did eventually feel better on those post-nightmare mornings. And your partner seemed to as well when it wasn't your own eyes that were shadowed-- and neither of you discussed the fact that breakfast could be an hour or more when more usually it was twenty minutes, a half hour.

_Keep out of reach I'm your leading deletion_  
_Hide behind these masks_  
_Though they still see right through them_  
_Every now and then_  
_You're down and out my friend_  
_Down and out again_  
_Down and out again_  
_Down and out again_  
_I'm down with you_

Sometimes, your partner pressed too close on still-painful wounds and you snapped back a bit or just withdrew quickly, harder than was really deserved. But you needed that space-- the hurt of the memory was bad enough, but the fear of your partner knowing how badly you hurt was stronger still. It was twisted and you knew it, because when the shoe was on the opposite foot you knew you didn't care how wounded your friend felt. You knew in your heart that no matter what your best friend had been through, the result had been that your partner was a stronger, better person than almost anyone else, and nothing could change your mind about that. So you offered what solace you could. Some attempt at comforting words. Some light touch that was such a strong temptation to do more, try more, try to be more with and for your partner.

_One more time for the last time_  
_One more time for release_  
_One more time for the last time_  
_Everyone wants to believe_

You weren't ever willing to give up trying to be there for your partner, even if things stayed as they were, never went past the level of friendship and confidence that you had in each other. You were confident that your partner would back you up in the field-- confident that your loved ones would be safe and defended if it ever came down to it and you weren't around to take care of them any more. And you knew your partner could confide anything in you-- you just hoped your friend understood that. Maybe someday there would be a point when you weren't so scared, too, to confide in return and let go of some of the things that still woke you at night-- or worse, sometimes came roaring back while you were in the middle of the day, trying to work and be productive and otherwise pretend like you were a whole person with a grip on your life. Maybe someday. In the meantime, you'd just stick around and hope that at some point, your partner would feel the same way.

_Blame it on youth, all these years I've been losing_  
_Blame it on the past, it's the last place I knew you_  
_Blame all the children their rage and their ruin_  
_Blame it on the black and the blue_  
_Every now and then_  
_You're down and out my friend_  
_Down and out again_  
_Down and out again_  
_Down and out again_  
_I'm down with you_

Had there ever been a point when you didn't feel like you were shattered glass, messily taped and glued back together, braced with slapdash carpentering? When was the last time you hadn't felt like you had no sense from moment to moment what it would take to break you again? That unpredictability-- that never knowing when the next blow was going to fall, when the next bellow was going to come before you were taken to task for some imagined fault, some nonexistent failure-- it was like you were constantly standing on a thin ledge, the winds blowing from every direction at once, and you had no idea when you'd finally lose your footing and fall. It was why you did what you did, in the end. No one should feel like you did-- the people who'd made you feel like you didn't know who you were anymore, who were never really called to account for all the hurt they'd inflicted not just on you but everyone around them-- you had to do what you could to stop them no matter how often you woke in the mornings thinking you couldn't do it anymore. But you got up anyway-- not in small part because you knew your partner was waiting to work with you, was counting on you to help in doing that same work-- your partner had that same deep commitment, the same reasons, to prevent for someone else all those hurts not yet disclosed to you.

_One more time for the last time_  
_One more time for release_  
_One more time for the last time_  
_Everyone wants to believe_

Every once in a while you wondered-- hoped-- wished-- thought you caught some glimmer that your partner felt that same deep yearning for more than what you already had. The things you each said, the looks you each exchanged, that feel of that hand on you-- what if it was true? What if your desire to see your partner waking and sleeping was shared? Sometimes, that touch from the partner would be the only time someone touched you for more than a handshake in days-- the thrill that went through you each time you made contact was both of relief that someone wanted to touch you as well as excitement that your partner wanted to touch you, however small a moment it might be.

But then, what if the depth of your need wasn't shared, and your friend was just trying to be that-- a comforting friend? What would it mean to come clean? In the end, it was always what stopped you from doing more than looking back, saying something vague, touching only for a moment. Because if it wasn't true, then you might lose those small promises, those long looks, the warmth of someone else touching you and saying just for a moment that it was okay, that you were okay.

* * *

You blinked clear of your reverie to realize that your partner was also staring straight out the window as the rain poured down during your stakeout, the both of you quietly murmuring the lyrics of the song under your breaths.

"I didn't know you liked this band," you managed to say, and your partner gave you one of those long looks you two shared when yet again you wondered whether one of you might finally say something more about being more than just partners.

"It's a good song," your best friend-- but not more-- replied. "I like most of their music, but this one's particularly resonant."

"Resonant. That's the word," you replied. Inhaling, you felt the words on your tongue. If the words resonated with you both equally, then maybe ...

A flicker of movement attracted both of you. "That's him," your partner said quietly. Did you detect a hint of regret in your friend's tone of voice? A look of sadness that some moment had passed?

"We'd better go," was your automatic response. You slid out of your seats, quietly closed the truck's doors, and made your quiet way after the suspect, sliding your way through the dark and the rain, ducking yourself into cover so the lights wouldn't illuminate where you were. Your partner was right there with you, likewise keeping out of sight so the suspect wouldn't discover you until it was time to confront him and reveal what you knew. You were both good at that subterfuge. The irony wasn't lost on you, but you kept silent anyway.

* * *

_**"Brennan and Booth aren't in any way opposites. ... Yes. He's a man. She's a woman. He's instinctual. She's empirical. Superficial ephemera." **_  
_**Gordon-Gordon, "Mayhem on the Cross."**_


	69. What's Real

A/N: A Booth-POV centered tag with definite spoilers for the end of "The Critic in the Cabernet."

* * *

**What's Real**  
_  
"I was getting used to hallucinating. It's going to be lonely."_

The doctors say they're not real, just a product of fluid and pressure, and that once the tumor's gone, I won't hallucinate anymore. I'm not sure if it's a good thing.

I needed to hear what Teddy and Luc had to tell me, and thinking about it didn't help. I couldn't accept what I tried to tell myself, and I don't even know what I would have told someone else had they asked for advice in the same situation. I sure wouldn't have said what I was worrying about aloud-- not really. So it made sense-- I needed to hear those from someone besides myself thinking things over, and Teddy and Luc gave me that. Hell, despite how weird it was, Stewie too.

I didn't need to ask if they were real to feel like what they were saying was true. I was willing to believe they were just one of those things you can't explain-- hallucination, ghost, subconscious emergence, whatever. Knowing that it's just a mass in my brain that can be cut out, excised, tossed away? It makes the answers they gave me feel less real, and makes me feel less real as a result.

All those things I thought? All those things I felt because I believed maybe there was something outside myself that let me feel like I was not as bad a person as I sometimes feel like I am? If they were just some result of fluid pressure on the mud brain or whatever they call it-- then maybe the relief that I felt at what Luc and Teddy and hell, even Stewie had to tell me was false-- and I've got to start over at square one. What's still real, when you take them away? And how can I believe in saints and more if the imaginary people who actually spoke with me and helped me figure out stuff weren't real to begin with? Belief is supposed to be something outside yourself-- not all in your head. And now I don't even know what's in my head.

I guess all these needles and patches and IV bags and this stupid hospital gown are real. And that consent form they made me sign. That's real-- too real. It makes me think about all that legal paperwork back at my apartment-- all signed, just in case, but it never seemed real before now. But all these doctors and nurses buzzing around and poking and prodding-- I could be any patient. I'm not Seeley Booth to them. I'm just a brain tumor-- enough to make me feel even more unreal.

Until she comes back. She's real, more than anyone or anything else, and that smile, oh _man_, that smile's real. That vise grip she had on my arm when she dragged me out of the interrogation room-- that's real. And her ... fear ... of Stewie and Luc and Teddy, and her demand that I trust her? That's real. The my trusting part is especially real. Her promise to come in the operating room with me? That's too. And her hand in mine? Well, I don't know about the rest afterward, but her hand's real even if everything else isn't.

* * *

_A/N: I know I'm (almost, I hope) unforgivably late with Character Building and other updates-- I'm actually working on Cracked Ice & Serendipity, but flu has yielded to walking pneumonia and anything longer than tags require more energy than I've got right now, except in dribs & drabs. Sorry. And thanks for all your reviews and PM's and emails-- I really appreciate every one of them, even as I am also behind in responding.  
_


	70. Prometheus, Mnemosyne, Chronos

_A/N:_

_This one will join the millions of post "End in the Beginning" fics sure to be written. Even though "Bitter," "Displeased," "Annoyed," "Angry," and maybe "Cheated" wouldn't begin to describe how that last one minute ruined what was for me an otherwise interesting and lovely episode, I nonetheless needed to write this. Maybe Season 5 will erase my displeasure, but for now I can't speculate any more, and I'm left feeling ... grumpy. I think my only other fic on this ep (besides my terribly behind Character Buildings) will be an M-rated slash between Cam and Brennan, because was it just me, or was that scene in Cam's "office" incredibly hot? Ahem. Sorry._

_Many thanks to MickeyBoggs, doctorsuez, and celtic33 for their thoughts._

_Finally, I've been rollercoastering with my antibiotics for this pneumonia and have been in and out of the doctors' office and hospital—I'm feeling much better but am desperately behind with my updates and reading your posts. Many thanks for your emails, PMs, reviews and kind thoughts. I'm truly grateful for all your expressions of friendship!_

* * *

**Prometheus, Mnemosyne, Chronos**

She came every day to see him at his apartment after he was done working with his various therapists, trying to remember and getting almost nowhere. It was strange what he didn't remember-- no one at the lab, except Cam. But Parker, he remembered. He remembered their cases and all the things he'd picked up along the way-- but he remembered none of the people at the Bureau he worked with at all. It was hard to work with those patches, so they'd put him on leave until they could see how he stabilized. He remembered that he knew how to fire any rifle or gun-- and he remembered that he'd always hated it even as he'd always admitted the necessity, since he was better at it than anyone else he knew.

He _knew_ he should remember her-- he'd dreamed about her and it had seemed so _real_. He'd loved her so _much_ in the dream when he called her Bren and made love to her-- he sure as hell remembered that part of his dream. But when he called her Bren before she could answer his question about who she was in the hospital, it was like he had slapped her. She'd said, with tears in her eyes, "_you used to call me Bones_." But he didn't remember, and when he called her that name now, it sounded strange on his tongue and she looked even more mournful.

His dreams except for the one that seemed so real were all empty and vague-- even his subconscious lost memory. He'd done tons of reading about brains and memory ever since he woke up, but all it did was highlight his loss. So he read other things-- stuff that Parker was working on so he could help with his homework, as well as literature he remembered enjoying in college. He'd always liked reading the older things-- the Latin of Mass in his grandparents' throwback cathedral led to learning to love epic poems. He'd read some of the original Latin, and the Greek stuff in translation. The heroic, tragic-comic works often felt more real that what people wrote about now, another reason he didn't read much in his more recent life besides the papers and Bones' books. He remembered he read those, even as they didn't jostle his memory on re-reading them now.

He knew he and Bones were best friends because she was _always_ there for him and he _always_ felt relieved to see her, though he didn't know why. She even seemed to have developed a sixth sense for when he was wide awake in the middle of the night, aggravated and pacing as his disability pricked at him more. Half remembered flashes floated away before he could catch them-- sometimes waking, sometimes sleeping. But within twenty minutes of his waking and pacing-- _I feel like a caged tiger at the zoo -- _she'd show up, saying "_I couldn't sleep, I thought I'd just drop some things off. Sorry to bother you._" She always had cookies or chips or beer or some other thing he liked in hand, and he'd always say it was fine and invite her in. It felt natural for the two of them to be eating together in the middle of the night, and he'd said so maybe the third or fourth time it happened. She'd said "_Yes. We did this a lot._" Almost three months, now, and every three or four nights when he'd wake up and start pacing, she was always there in twenty minutes or less.

He knew this thing was taking its toll on her, but he didn't quite know how. He knew she was losing weight, and her face was always so grave, even as she'd put on these watery smiles that didn't fool him a bit. But she talked about the cases she consulted on for the FBI-- she said she stayed in the lab except to go out to recover the bodies, but somehow that didn't sound right, though he knew she wasn't lying-- and she'd describ her nine thousand year old bodies.

He had more and more dreams of that alternate world he'd dreamed about, where they were married club owners in love and having a baby, though it never got farther than that scene in her office where she said she was pregnant-- it was a taunting reminder of what he now felt had killed off the real memories, as ridiculous as that notion seemed. One night, he woke up and began pacing, angry at the fact that in his dream they made love but not in real life, when it felt like they should. Ten minutes in, he picked up the phone and called her-- "are you going to come over?" he asked, impatient to see her. Why did she always wait twenty minutes? Was that just how far away she lived? How did she even know he was up?

"I was buying cookies," she said, her voice choked on the other end of the line.

"Chocolate chip, please," he said, relieved to hear her voice, no matter how choked.

When she arrived, he took the cookies from her and set them down by the table at the door so he could pull her into a hug. It felt natural. And he breathed in her hair, that smell he remembered in his not-real dream. He'd never told her about the part where they made love, not since she'd gotten upset when he'd confusedly told her that first day in the hospital that he thought they were married. "_You're my best friend_," she'd said, voice choked, and he knew it was true, though it felt like they should be married. He didn't bring it up again, though, because he didn't want to see her upset.

As he held her now and remembered how there were so many things he didn't remember, he could remember one thing that was real. She hadn't liked it at first when he hugged her, though he couldn't remember why. And he knew somehow that he'd lied to her about hugging in order to make her let him in the first place. He also remembered that he'd hugged her a lot, even when he vaguely thought maybe there weren't many other people he wanted to hug aside from his son.

"I wish ... Bones," he said in her ear, and those three words undid her. She started to sob, though like everything else about her it was somehow dignified and beautiful. He hated that he clearly was the cause of it. And he hated most of all that almost as soon as she started to cry, she stopped. She was afraid, he could tell, of upsetting him. And of course he was upset-- she'd been his best, most consistent friend since this new thing had started, and the fact that it clearly ripped her heart out every day to be with him_-- like she was a kind of Prometheus-- _made him angry at himself. But right now, she was stuffing it down and he just wished she wouldn't. She'd come over so many times to listen to him rant and rave and express fury, only to find himself sitting on the couch with her and her sitting there with her hand on his arm, gently squeezing. That contact always made him feel better, but tonight he remembered-- _at least he remembered this-- _they used to hug.

"Come on, Bones," he said then. "I'm not the only one who's sad here," he said softly.

She pulled away, face pale and tears glittering, and said "But you're the only one who matters."

She loved him more than anything, he realized. And suddenly, it didn't matter that he didn't remember why-- because even though he didn't remember what happened before, she still loved him and still stuck around, even though they'd lost whatever they'd been before this all happened. So even though it felt new, he kissed her because the urge felt so very natural. He was sure they must have done it before, that he just didn't remember, like so many other things. But when their lips came in contact, it was that old cliche of being hit by lightning. He jerked back, feeling dazed by even that first brush of his lips over hers.

"Mistletoe?" he asked. "I kissed you once under mistletoe. But just that once."

She nodded, tears still slipping down her cheeks, and he remembered something more. She hated crying, and he was the only one she let see her cry. And then he remembered-- she used to smile and laugh around him when she wouldn't around others. She'd had smiles just for him.

He'd loved her more than anything aside from his son, he realized. And he still did, even though there was so much he still couldn't remember. He knew one thing, though. Even though he'd only kissed her that one time, wanting to kiss her was something he remembered feeling all the time, and he had no idea why he hadn't gone through with it.

"Well, whatever reason I had for not kissing you more, it was incredibly stupid," he said, then brought his lips back to hers, withstanding the lightning this time even as she sobbed in his mouth when he wrapped his arms around her more tightly.

Everything else that happened after that third kiss of their lives felt natural too, but he knew it was totally new. It was so much better than what he remembered in that dream, because now he knew for sure that that hadn't been real, and this was. This time he didn't mind having to learn something new, because it really was something new to them both, not just to him. And while she cried the whole time, she begged him not to stop, and he remembered he could never say no to her, so he didn't. He just tasted and held and explored her and she finally stopped crying not long after they were finally sated and she lay in his bed in his arms, limp and exhausted. He reveled in the fact that now he had a new memory, one that hadn't happened before but was as real as anything was.

"You need to eat more," he said as he held her. He suddenly remembered a diner and a bar not far down the street from her lab and how he was always dropping by at odd hours to her office-- _pink walls, lots of pottery and bones, a grey couch and throw that felt like home -- _to make sure she'd eaten. No wonder she'd been getting so thin. "More french fries," he added, remembering a mischievous smile on her face as she pretended to steal them and he pretended to be annoyed. He was pretty sure the waitresses always added a little more to his plate than to anyone else's.

She choked on another sob then as her head lay on his chest, and it only then fully struck him how much it must hurt every day to have your heart ripped out of your chest. He didn't have the contrast of what he didn't remember to make it even more bitter than it already was. So he started all over again-- after a bout of hysterical crying when he told her he loved her and she choked out her response between sobs, he kept making love to her, and finally she smiled at him. It was a smile only for him, he knew, but he somehow also knew it was one he'd never seen before.

So she slept, and he watched her, and eventually he slept too, but not before muttering _Mnemosyne_ to himself. He wasn't sure if it was a prayer, but it felt like something he knew.

* * *

How was it possible to put four years into four hours of dreaming? It still happened. He woke suddenly, looking at her clasped in his arms, the first sight he saw with old memories and new striving for place in his brain. And he remembered why _Bones_ hadn't quite seemed right in his mouth ever since he woke up. Yes, he'd called her _Bones_ all the time-- but it was because _Temperance _was what he called her in dreams and those dreams were too intimate for him to tell her about. Brennan had quickly become too formal. And even though _Bones_ had annoyed her at first, he still kept on with the name, because the dreams of _Temperance _came fast and hard, and he was sure if he said her given name aloud she'd know how he felt and the game would be up. He'd called her _Bones_ because he'd convinced himself he couldn't have _Temperance_-- he'd denied that he loved her as more than a friend for a long time, even as he still dreamt of her. When he called her _Bones_ then, it had never felt natural-- but it had been a habit he'd forced on himself.

He'd called her _Temperance_ last night, though. He'd called her _Bones_ when they started, but _Temperance_ was what he'd shouted that first time she'd held him while he shuddered inside her.

_Mnemosyne_ was the greek goddess of memory, the mother of the Muses, he now recalled. She was a Titan, and gave names to things so it was possible to know what they were. Some people thought she was the first philosopher, which made sense because she was the first one to remember things that required thinking about.

He'd been living like a hermit, he suddenly realized. He went out and got groceries. Went to the library and the bookstore and the video rental place. He saw Parker and built more memories with him. He went to the gym, went to places besides work that he was told he used to enjoy. The ones he didn't remember he didn't return to. But he realized then he'd never even gone in the first place to her work or apartment-- she always came over here, and he met the people who told him they'd once been his "Squints" at the small burger place down the street from his apartment.

He suddenly needed to go to her place, because as much as he'd always enjoyed having her here, now he remembered that it had felt more like home there because it was the first place they began to spend so much time together. He felt restless, his body raring to go to see things he _remembered, _and that energy woke her even as he tried to lie still. She made a small noise and he couldn't wait to kiss her again, so he didn't wait and he kissed her again until he had to breathe.

"I called you Bones because I always dreamt about Temperance," he said solemnly.

She drew in a breath, eyes glimmering again, and he knew she saw that he finally remembered it all. "You can call me whatever you want. But I did come to like Bones. Only from you, though."

He nodded, swallowing a lump. "I always wanted you to call me Seeley."

She choked on a laugh. "You told me you hated your first name."

He closed his eyes for a moment before looking back at her. "It would have been different from you." It already was-- she'd called him _Seeley_ a few times last night when she was at her most completely abandoned.

She nodded solemnly. "Seeley it is, then."

They made more love after she called in to work, saying only "Booth remembers and I'm not coming in."

"I want to go to your place," he said after she'd had a shower and slipped on some of his clothes-- a wonderful new memory, how baggy they looked on her. "You need fresh clothes anyway if we're going to go to the diner." She startled a bit as he said it, but then nodded and pulled on her sneakers and one of his sweatshirts.

He followed her down to the street in confusion, the old and new memories fighting for space and attention as she did something he wasn't used to. "Bones, Temperance ... your place is a fifteen minute drive from here."

She shook her head, biting her lip. "Just follow me." She crossed the street, walked two houses over and let herself in, heading to the third story walk-up. She opened the door, biting her lip hard and walking to the back of the house as she let him look around for himself.

It was sparsely furnished, nothing like her old place, the one he remembered. There was no artwork to speak of. It was painted a light and yet somehow murky grey. It had one bedroom, one bath, a small kitchen, and a living room that had nothing in it except a few piles of books, a reading lamp, some scattered woolen throws in heaps on the floor and a soft leather arm chair placed in the window, looking out toward the street. He sat in the chair and looked, shaking. It had a perfect view looking down to his second floor living room window, though not into his bedroom-- it was far enough away that there was nothing visible in detail-- but it was close enough, he was utterly sure, to see the lights on.

She was changing her clothes in her impersonal bedroom when he got up and found her, after five minutes of staring in shock at a room whose only real feature was whether he was awake and pacing again. The only things in the bedroom besides the bed, more books, a lamp, and a closet and mundane bureau with clothes was a little pink pig and a small blue figurine.

He sat down with a hard thump on her bed, noticing idly that it hardly seemed slept in. "How long," he asked, his voice strangled.

"The day before you came home from the hospital," she said. She'd come in a few hours later than she usually did, he now remembered. He'd wondered then where she'd been, his constant and unknown but somehow familiar visitor, but he hadn't asked her because she looked even sadder than she usually did.

"What about your place?"

She gave him a wavering smile. "My Dad's been keeping an eye on it."

She balanced on one leg as she watched him, pulling on boots.

"Why twenty minutes, then?"

She bit her lip. "Sometimes you would get up and I think get some water and then go back to bed after five minutes, so I waited ten to make sure. And ... sometimes the convenience store was out of your cookies or chips and I had to walk down the street to the liquor store for beer. I suppose I should have stocked up, but ... that felt ... permanent."

_She's been living in limbo, a grey apartment in a cheap neighborhood, waiting to see if I'd wake up and maybe remember-- and kept me company still when I didn't._

Their clothes found the floor again and he was the one who cried this time, but he eventually stopped after she kept calling him _Seeley. _They lay there, limbs tangled, as he watched the dim walls, neither light nor shadows touching the room.

They slept some more, and when he woke again all the old and new memories felt like they'd settled in place. He pushed her into the shower, itching to get out of an apartment that felt haunted by nothing, jostling impatiently even as he nuzzled her while she dried her hair and generally got in her way as she tried to get dressed.

"Come on, Bo- ... Temperance," he said when they returned to the street. "I want some french fries and pie. And ... maybe you'll finally try some?"

He waggled his eyebrows and she laughed-- oh, how she laughed even as she started crying again. He handed her one of the hankies he always kept in his jacket pockets-- _you never knew when a victim's family would cry or you'd find evidence that needed to be examined more closely_-- and watched as she dabbed at her eyes, then smiled as she said self-deprecatingly "It's going to take me a bit."

"We've got all the time in the world," he said, meaning it, and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her closer than a hand at her back or an arm over her shoulder. He remembered something else, then. _Chronos_, the greek god of time. Heartache, _Prometheus_. _Mnemosyne_, memory. _Chronos_, time. They could make up for lost time.

* * *

_A/N: Yes, there's a lot of this that's cliched, but so was the episode's ending. Grrr. At least we got "real" sex in my version._


End file.
